Minimalism of Tadić's award-winning documentaries from the early
seventies expanded to the harsh rhytm of narration in feature films, in which
introvert borderline heroes undergo trials of strength with destiny.

Zoran Tadić's film opus hides an interesting controversy: his works are
domestic versions of thrillers and crime stories, genres which have few
representatives in Croatian cinema; still, they were never particularly popular.
Genre represents a recognizable film mold with the help of which the public
learns to accept a certain type of stories: we can assume that an invisible
green light of interest sparkles in every viewer's eye when a murder is in
question, but Tadić uses this bait to take the story in a totaly different
direction, without any intention of ever satisfying the viewers' curiosity
concerning human deviations. Behind the explosive title of his cinema debut
The Rhythm of Crime (Ritam zločina, the original TV series had a
rather benign, but ambiguous title – The Ghost of Zagreb) hides an
intimate story about the unusual relationship of the landlord and his tenant who
draws apparently crazy graphs of crime statistics. The Third Key opens as
a thriller about a couple who keeps receiving anonymous envelopes with money in
their mailbox, but further development offers a much more Kafkian than Hollywood
story. Dream of the Rump also has a provocative beginning – a worker who
cannot afford even a beefstake, finds a plastic bag with a gun and a lot of
money. Of course, instead of bestial spending and shooting, we witness almost an
hour long tortureous psychological battle over what he should do with the things
he has found.

Tadić shows almost no interest for generic attractions – sex, violence, toying
with tension: the minimalism of his award-winning documentaries from the early
seventies expanded to the harsh rhythm of narration in feature films, in which
introvert social borderline heroes undergo trials of strength with destiny, but
often without much success. Tadić's pessimism is in complete accordance with the
viewpoints of foreign authors who were his role-models – Fritz Lang, Alfred
Hitchcock, Carol Reed, and others. If he had lived in Hollywood in the forties
and the fifties, Tadić would have had easily incorporated his directorial
craftmanship, agile use of a small budget, and inclination towards generic
outlines in then lively B-production. Instead, he created an intriguing hybrid –
he sank classical film noir into the decomposing socialism millieu of the
eighties. Some of his films are still socially up-to-date, primarily Eagle
(Orao) (inclined to toying around, Tadić even shortened the original
title of the novel Artificial Eagle (Umjetni orao), written by his
regular screenplay assistant Pavao Pavličić), which at the turn of the nineties
none of the cinema distributors wanted to screen: perhaps because it reminded
them too overtly of the unpleasant reality that they did not want to review on
the silver screen. (Nenad Polimac)