Starring Dragos Bucur and Vlad Ivanov. In Romanian with English subtitles. Unrated. Plays Friday to Monday, January 29 to February 1, and Wednesday and Thursday, February 3 and 4, at the Pacific Cinémathí¨que

In detective stories, the women are often smarter than the men. (In film noir, for instance, that’s pretty much the rule.) What is unheard of, however, is a plainclothes man who’s dumber than his boss. Fictional top cops, when neither evil nor corrupt, are virtually always depicted as dim bulbs whose low wattage makes the brilliance of the independent hero shine all the brighter.

Not here, though.

In Police, Adjective (which won two prizes at the last Cannes Film Festival), Corneliu Porumboiu’s breathtaking follow-up to his impressive debut feature, 12:08 East of Bucharest, Det. Cristi (Dragoş Bucur) has a problem. The drug ring he’s supposed to bust in the provincial city of Vaslui seems to be centred on a nebbishy high-school kid who recognizes how limited the local prospects really are in post–Nicolae Ceauşescu Romania. This is no James Bond villain, the downfall of whom brings righteousness in its wake. This is just some poor underage sad sack doing the best that he can.

Cristi’s reluctance to follow orders is challenged first by his schoolteacher wife and then by his Machiavellian commander, Anghelache (Vlad Ivanov, the actor who previously portrayed the ruthless abortionist in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), the latter individual displaying a gift for soul-destroying debate that would put even Mephistopheles to shame.

Most of Police, Adjective consists of long, slow takes depicting the surveillance that precedes the takedown. It is the moral questions that really score the viewer’s conscience, though.

This was the most extraordinary entry at the 2009 Vancouver International Film Festival. Now’s your chance to find out why.