Stundenplan

Then it just became another 80's Karate Kid-type film we've all seen many times before - from the 80's and 90's. The fight scenes were too many and too boring, and the entire story had every cliche you can imagine. There were probably as many plot holes as there were fight scenes, and the entire story had nothing new to offer for this genre as it was entirely predictable. The romance scenes were cheesy and sappy as well. Plus it got tiresome glorifying the lead actor as some tough-guy - almost as if he wrote the story to make himself an action star, which was unconvincing from the start. The normally comfortable 101 min felt dragged out with all the cliched and predictable scenes, even though it had decent pacing. Perhaps in the hands of a better director and more convincing lead, I may have given it an extra point or two, but as was, not offering anything new to the genre, it's a very generous 6/10 from me - mostly because it was an international Polish and non-Hollywood film that was still watchable, one time.

I enjoyed this. The main character, Damian, is believable and sympathetic, plus we feel sorry for him because his wife was murdered by some really serious bad guys. The baddies in this film are suitably loathsome, the love interest is cute and we are encouraged to root for the good guys from the word go. The high school setting is convincing, the locations are dark and threatening and everything generally goes the way we want. Not cinematic history but a good thriller with a different setting from most. I can see where the comparisons with Reacher come from but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Watchable and satisfying, once you've had a drink or two.

What takes away from this film immediately, is the poor choice in music. There has been an increase in opting for this type of music, across many mediums and platforms and it lowers the quality of the films.

Rock, Hard rock, would be more appropriate. Or any other kind of music rather than what was selected. I was really looking forward to the film. Within the first minute, and within first ten minutes the choice remains the same, causing me to simply have to pause the film. To all producers of film, please choose something else- the audience is not impressed by such a choice. You put in a lot of hard work to have it tainted with such low class music.

Not only does the story move at a glacial pace, the action moves just as slow. Every move looks over-choreographed and lands so slowly it looks like it does no damage. Not only that but even when the main character's life is threatened, he rarely does any permanent damage to his opponents. He leaves random drunks with more bruises than those responsible for his friend's death. It completely breaks immersion.

Overall, the story itself isn't a bad one and the film could've been an entertaining if unmemorable action flick if some sort of action coach had been hired and a script editor hired to remove the cheesy, recycled lines from old kung-fu movies. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case and it instead ended up disappointingly average.

No pun intended - not sure if this took one movie in particular and said that is the blueprint we want to use. But the movie itself is quite predictable .. it also seems to have no surprises when it comes to characters ... and developments if you want to call them that. But if you like action movies ... and don't care about story or plot a lot ... well you could do worse.

The movie is also easy and takes the easy (hard hitting, no pun intended) way most of the time. The ending is also quite convenient ... when it comes to positioning ... but if you have an issue with that falling down on you ... well you didn't really like anything that came before it either. It is a B-Movie action film from Poland ... there are far worse things out there ... there are far better things too ... overall it is a decent effort in my eyes.