To mikro psari

The movie tells the tale of Stratos, a weathered hit-man, who more-or- less wants to leave the past behind him. But as we know from other gangster-stories, once you get in it's hard to get out.

This is a very slow-paced crime drama. Well directed, with an impressive lead actor and good, believable cast. There are many well-composed scenes that create a desolate world, and one has to wonder how close to the real Greece that is.

The only (but important) element that bothered me was the length, which is mostly due to an exaggerated amount of minimalistic long scenes. The story was compelling enough, I wish it was just edited-down a bit. But I respect the director and his vision.

After the screening, here at the Ghent Film Festival, I've overheard someone say "this is like the Greek Drive, but at least Drive had style". I disagree with that remark and would not compare the two films at all.

If you lived a criminal life, it won't be easy to just step out of it. We know that cliché, even if we never actually had anything to do with criminal life itself. And even (or even more so) in a financially unstable country as Greek, there is always some interests to gain and money to launder.

This does concentrate on a small fish (hence the title) trying to survive in the pond (to make the picture complete). It is understated and sort of mellow. But not mellow when it comes to the language. There is a lot of swearing going on and a lot of repetition. To a point where it gets annoying. It might be the world our character is living at, but the apathy is not appealing nor does it really enhance the viewing experience.

Having said that, the movie is also violent and does quite a few things right. You do know where this is going (paying respect to some great movies, especially with that ending), but never achieving the greatness it set out to. A decent effort that clogs itself up, hindering it to really achieve its full potential

This movie is notbad, but certainly not a great either.

Although the story shows potential, teh delivery and teh script doesn't help the end result.

The dialogues are naive and simple, with too much profanity and repeated lines, wasting time and in the end they don't provide any further details to the story.

The actors are doing a good job with a weak script on their hands, but at times they seem to be fighting a losing battle.

The direction is ok, at times it becomes too slow.

The violence scenes however are pretty realistic.

Generally a decent movie that could be a lot better...but it isn't.

It is generally a well-made film with an interesting plot, very good directing, and excellent acting by every one of its actors, even those playing minor characters. The strikingly empty, unpopulated spaces that predominate throughout the film seem to reflect well the inner emptiness and lack of feelings of the characters, and they are in contrast with the colourful, noisy scene towards the end, which I perceived as reflecting the fact that the last act of the protagonist was the only one driven by his emotions. On the negative side, I found that some repetitions were unnecessary and made me a little bored halfway through the film. In the last 45 minutes, however, the narration flows swiftly again and, by the end, my full interest was back again. Overall, the story is that of violence and crime that does not make you leaving the theatre with a grin on your face, but the more you think of it afterwards the more you like it. Certainly worth seeing.

This is a contemporary film noir. A bleak, harsh look at a society in deep crisis not only of an economic nature but a crisis of moral values as well, where people have lost their moral compass and literally everything is for sale.

It's language is really harsh and this serves the story well because on the one hand it has to do with the mob and on the other hand it signifies the lack of any hope of the main character escaping from the path of the existential annihilation that naturally follows in the end.

People who don't appreciate or understand this realistic depiction of the way the mobsters talk in this movie are the same people who never appreciated the message of movies like Natural Born Killers and thus decided to exhaust their criticism talking about the violence and swearing. No, Ekonomides is not Oliver Stone by any means, but still he's one of the most promising Greek directors right now along with Voulgaris.

This movie is not from the faint hearted. It's a black, unforgiving stare into the abyss. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss looks right back at you!

N.