Bad Deathbed Advice, Indeed - The New York Times Hearing such avowals earnestly delivered by the besotted title character of "Charlie Countryman" to his tough Romanian dream girl, you don't know whether to laugh or to wince. The feature debut of Fredrik Bond from a screenplay by Matt Drake, this catastrophe of a movie zigzags drunkenly between action-adventure and surreal comedy with some magical realism slopped over it like ketchup. In the opening scene, a weeping Charlie (Shia LaBeouf) observes his dying mother (Melissa Leo) being taken off life support in a Chicago hospital. A moment later, her ghost is sitting beside him advising him to go to Bucharest, Romania. Why Bucharest? "I don't know," she says. Just do it. Much later, she returns in a smoke ring from the great beyond to confess sheepishly that she really meant Budapest. Between these two visitations, Charlie, a lost soul in search of romance and adventure, is befriended on the overseas flight by his Romanian seat mate, an avid Chicago Cubs fan, who dies before they land. When Charlie alerts the flight attendant, she responds by covering the body with a blanket and offering him a free beverage. At the airport, Charlie meets and falls in love at first sight with the dead traveler's daughter, Gabi (Evan Rachel Wood), a cellist at the Bucharest National Opera. Because Gabi is married to a gangster (Mads Mikkelsen), Charlie finds himself entangled with Romanian mobsters whose preferred method of punishment is to attach enemies to one another with superglue that rips off their skin if they try to unstick themselves. Bucharest, as portrayed in the movie, is a sleazy, graffiti-ridden sinkhole of commercial sex and violence in which polite questions to strangers are answered with surly threats. Any plans I had of going there have been scrapped. "Charlie Countryman" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) for brutal violence, profanity, sexual situations, nudity and drug use. Charlie Countryman Opens Friday. Directed by Fredrik Bond; written by Matt Drake; director of photography, Roman Vasyanov; edited by Hughes Winborne; music by Christophe Beck and Deadmono; production design by Joel Collins; costumes by Jennifer Johnson; produced by Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa, Craig J. Flores and William Horberg; released by Millennium Entertainment. WITH: Shia LaBeouf (Charlie Countryman), Evan Rachel Wood (Gabi Ibanescu), Mads Mikkelsen (Nigel), Til Schweiger (Darko), Rupert Grint (Karl), James Buckley (Luc), Vincent D'Onofrio (Bill), Melissa Leo (Katie) and John Hurt (Narrator).