(2008; Die Klopka Falle, Serbian) Is there anything a parent wouldn't be willing to do to save his or her child's life? "Everything is a mess," admits Mladen Pavlovic (Nebojša Glogovac), attempting to explain the insane, stupid thing he has done as he tries to do what's right.

His preadolescent son, Nemanja (Marko Đurovi?), requires an expensive operation to correct a coronary condition, not available in post-Milosevic Belgrade; the physician urges promptly taking the boy to Berlin, but insurance won't cover the 26,000-euro cost.

As the boss of a failing state-owned civil-engineering firm, Mladen, a decent, honest man, and his wife Marija (Nataša Ninkovi?), a high-school teacher, unable to raise the money or access a loan, place an ad in the newspaper in hopes of attracting sympathetic donors. A man calls and offers during a meeting with Mladen to contribute 30,000 euros, without expectation of repayment, in exchange for a favor: "We need someone no one will suspect" to eliminate "a man no one will miss."

Anguished with a decision, Mladen picks up the gun, down payment of 3,000 euros, instructions, and identity of the victim. But when he realizes that Petar Ivkovic is the father of Isadora, who attends school with Nemanja, and husband of Jelena (Anica Dobra), with whom he's acquainted from visits with his son to the park, he has second thoughts: "I can't help my own son."

After another seizure sends Nemanja back to the hospital, Mladen takes one life to save another. Based on Nenad Teoflovi?'s novel, this woeful tale of a family ensnared by their economic circumstances, irony continuously compounding the debt owed until it infinitely exceeds the limited means of repayment, was directed by Srdan Golubovi?, who co-wrote the screenplay.

When Mladen tells Marija, returning from the hospital, he has gotten dirty, she asks: "Where did you get the money?" At the funeral, which Mladen attends as does his contact, Petar's brother vows vengeance. The balance of the money owed isn't forthcoming; the contact disappears.

In a cruel twist, he befriends Jelena, taking her to the hospital after she faints on the park bench from an overdose of tranquilizers, gaining her further trust and esteem as a good man. After getting drunk and beaten up by youths for urinating on their car, he confesses to murder; but the police refuse to believe him. In despair at wit's end just as he's about to commit suicide, Marija, who has left him, calls, saying the money has appeared anonymously.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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