Regie:
Petr NikolaevCamera:
David PloyharMuziek:
Kristian KollActeurs:
Ondřej Vetchý, Lukáš Vaculík, Jan Vondráček, Jiří Dvořák, Vica Kerekes, Kryštof Hádek, Pavel Nečas, Filip Kaňkovský, Andrej Hryc, Zuzana Čapková (meer)Samenvattingen(1)
The Godfather's Story tells about the rise and fall of a person who worked his way up from dealing in digital watches to the position of a grey eminence of Czech politics. Two worlds collide in the film – the belief in the right of the stronger and smarter and the belief in justice. We follow the riveting duel between a representative of law and order and a person who changes the rules to suit himself. Police Inspector Cajthaml has dedicated his life to trailing the Godfather and he never lost his faith in the victory of justice. (officiële tekst van distribiteur)
(meer)Recensie (8)
This is technically excellent, dosing the wild nineties in the visual diction of a striking music video, and drags behind itself the most "wannabe" mafia epic ever made here. Ployhar's camera can fly like at a fair, but later you begin to suspect that this is more traditional Czech shallowness, where you don't know if it's lacking a dramaturgist or just money for an extra half hour.
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Actually, I don’t even know why I wanted to watch this movie. When I finally went to see it at the cinema, I just cursed and then some at the end of it, and the atmosphere hasn’t really left me yet. Petr Nikolaev surely filmed the Story of a God-Father Mrázek well and quite professionally. I minded the editing at the beginning. I couldn’t get used to the great number of effects that floated through the movie along with the cuts from one scene to another. But then I got used to it. It calmed down a lot, too. Because there came great acting performances, especially those of Vetchý and Vaculík. In Vaculík’s case, I even felt sorry because since he’s such a charismatic actor I almost never see him in roles like this. His acting was absolutely great in this movie. But as for the story itself, it made me sick to my stomach. Sick and sad. Mainly due to the fact that everything is basically very simple; I can’t actually believe how much. Well, I probably can…
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According to the main protagonist, the mobster Vedral, the worst thing is to die of fear. That is perhaps what the filmmakers said to themselves, so the most notable aspect of Story of a Godfather is its complete predictability – not in terms of plot twists, however, but in terms of the whole concept. If we approach the film as if it’s another addition to the bountiful czechsploitation category, it has absolutely nothing with which it could surprise us. This is how it differs from other czechsploitation movies of recent years, such as Kajínek, Unknown Hour and Czech Made Man, where it was possible to appreciate at least the genre and stylistic ambitions of the filmmakers or, conversely, to laugh at their artlessness and incompetence. Story of a Godfather is just a straightforward tabloid feature-film version of an investigative-journalism TV show that indirectly confirms for us the decadence of contemporary Czech society, whose prejudices and values it indirectly reflects.
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I would never voluntarily go see Story of a Godfather, but given that it was a blind screening, I was very surprised. It works perfectly purely as a film drama. Including a mirror of the times.
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The Czech Tony Scott directed the Czech version of American Gangster, and there is a noticeable difference unfortunately in most aspects, maybe except for Vica Kerekes, who’s always good. A shallow film with a bit too much humour and not enough mafia moments, terrible video clip-like music, and an absolute absence of anything seemingly epic. The effort is appreciated, but it’s not groundbreaking.
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A lot of things are just "wannabes", many of the actors are terrible and there is nothing better than the best part set after the revolution by the end, but Ondřej Vetchý is more than good, the relatively reasonable runtime goes by quick, so why not? Definitely better than Kajínek or Edgemen, but on the other hand it probably didn't take much effort to overcome such poor imitations.
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Here you can see why the best Scorsese films are about three hours long. Sure, it's nonsense to compare the technical and financial resources of Czech cinema with what has always been available to the aforementioned master (not to mention the talent pool of actors!), but the difference is simply abysmal. The premise of The Story of a God-Father isn’t pointless, it could be the base of a story about the criminal activities of the main "hero" and then add supporting pillars embracing both the two different political regimes and the diligent work of police investigators, but the screenplay is a waste of time. It's not that the story doesn't flow easily, because it does, with furious interludes somewhere on the level of a detective TV show that are separated by several years in a flash, and before we can fully realise what a bastard Vedral actually is and what a powerful empire he has built, we are already watching the closing credits. And that's a shame, because Nikolaev knows his craft, and when he has an interesting script, he’s proven he can make something interesting with it. The Story of a God-Father also has a great cast, who unfortunately are imprisoned in their cookie-cutter characters with basically no room for development. That said, it’s reasonably above-par, at least it shows us what our country is like and what kind of people actually run the politics. 70%
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After some time, another Czech film that is definitely worth attention appears, because this is something you won't see in cinemas just like that. The fact that someone tried to film something that is still quite controversial (the life of František Mrázek), even though only touching on the subject, is commendable. At least the Czech nation will see what kind of rubbish we have here, since they don't want to read books about it. Ondřej Vetchý was brilliantly chosen for the main role, the other characters remain somewhat in the background, except for Lukáš Vaculík's portrayal. Vica Kerekes can notch another success by sleeping with a Czech star in a film. The almost uselessness of some characters is definitely at least partially erased by the courage with which certain scenes were filmed. The violence is very intense in some places. Go see it, so you know where you live and finally lose all illusions. "The Godfather's Story", "Rubbish" and Czech elections. That tells enough about us.
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