Movie reviews

NAJMRO (THE GETAWAY KING)

Watchable. It purports to be a biopic but only 10% is based on facts, the rest has been seriously vamped up. Mateusz Rakowicz delivers a fast-paced crime comedy that grips until the end and has famed criminal Najmro trying to win over his love interest with slick people skills. There was no love relationship in real life, that's completely made up. The few true elements are: the number of escapes, the fact he was pardoned by Wałęsa, tried to run from court, broke out of prison through a tunnel, used to rob Pewex stores using posters. Zdzisław Najmrodzki's movie equivalent is shrewd and cocky, the story's jaunty and unforeseeable, with a pinch of salt but mostly with astute observations on the changing times. Shot in an international blockbuster manner but set firmly in Poland. Polish music hits of the depicted years place you at a given time. The cinema interior shown in the film is Warsaw's Elektronik cinema so watching the movie there gives you an extra kick. The production's sepia-toned, unusual for the presentation of the 80s-early 90s. Old cars, better or worse imitations of period fashion attempt to set the scene but the historical aspect is more about the types of crime and political change after the fall of communism and that's depicted successfully. Extraordinary cinematography applies slow motion or shots at varying angles. However, excessive use of editing results in some make-believe scenes. Also some of the dialogue isn't clearly audible.

GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE

Watchable. Tacky at first and contrived but the mother-daughter relationship is touching, the tunes melodious and recorded in Atmos. Also, once the trio reaches the library, the characters become more authentic and the finale is feminist. All in all, an innocuous, even if fully-loaded, de-brainer. Some of the world creation is a cheap imitation of "John Wick". The plot's simplistic but engaging enough.

THE END

Watchable. The producers clearly had more dough than reason. Opulent interiors, luxurious cars, beautiful naked women - lots of effort put into the set design and episodes. But the script by Adam Cioczek, Robert Ziębiński and Tomasz Mandes is rubbish, the dialogues downright stupid - celebs bitch each other at any chance - and full of swearing. The main cast act just enough to present the starlets and numpties they impersonate. I didn't walk out just because of those posh interiors I rarely get a chance to see. If the plot had meant to say anything about the film industry and celebrities, it should have been way smarter.