Po tamburi

As I big fan of The Warriors, movie poster for premiere on Pula Film Festival instantly caught my attention. What also caught my attention is significant rating drop in past two days which means that audience in Pula has their standards high up.

There are two things to point out in the beginning which came from observing remarks of other people watching this movie. First one is that there are plenty of references that might be really difficult to understand to the viewers from countries other than Croatia and its neighbors. Second one, presence of Branko Uvodic attracted some of the older audience probably thinking it would be some easy going music show. Well, it's not. And they didn't hide their displeasure on violence and swear words.

Plot is rather straightforward and faithfully follows one of The Warriors. There are many references there for other movies that influenced the director and there's an outstanding amount of details packed in every scene. Acting is extraordinary, given the fact that many of actors are still "green". As music is a center piece of the movie, it is well adapted into it, combining tamburica arrangements with hard rock in a subtle manner that really blends into the movie.

Croatian movies have been dominated for a long time with dull dramas which have almost identical motifs, seeing such movie was one refreshing experience. It has a new fun approach on a classic movie, it's fun, dynamic, somewhat trashy and delightful.

OK - I am from Slavonia - part of Croatia which this movie wanted to parody and make fun - and based on all the hype that was made at the time of production of this movie, I really expected it will deliver a funny parody of events, customs, music from that part of my country...

But what I watched was lame, crappy so-called "action comedy" that truly and entirely missed the point.

See, there are so many "stereotypes" about Slavonia which you can successfully and intelligently make fun of, but this a-kind-of-a remake of Walter Hill's classic "The Warriors" made in Croatian/Slavonian way, was pretty bad and occasionally even dull and boring.

I must say that first 30 minutes are pretty good, but then everything falls apart in lousy (over)acting, bad uninspired directing, weak action scenes and with very lame, non-funny and out-of-place jokes.

Some fight scenes are so badly done with completely wrong choice of fight choreography and soundtrack, that you really need to see it to believe it.

Final Warriors-like "come out to play" paraphrase was a nice idea - but also messed up totally...

I am really, really disappointed. There are so many missed opportunities to make a really good parody... So instead watching movie, just watch trailer - it is much better than entire movie.

I just hope maybe someone will make a decent remake of this remake :)

I had an opportunity to watch this movie on its world premiere at Pula Film Festival in Croatia. I have to add that local audience was having good time watching this movie and maybe it's just hard to understand for foreign viewers.

Although, it's trailer was weird but appealing for me. For the first 30 minutes of movie I still thought something will happen and this "comedy" will start to be funny. Suddenly not and with time passing it was just getting more boring and after an hour or so I was counting time left to the end. I can't criticise actors or recording. I just think that script/main plot was very poor and it was impossible to get more from it. I can't recommend but if you like Croatian movies, you might try it out.

As a Slavonian, I genuinely enjoyed the movie, particularly for its parody, which swings between grotesquely obvious and subtly understated, especially in its nods to Slavonian stereotypes and pop culture. The trashy vibe amplifies this sense of parody while offering a critique of today's rather dismal Slavonian society. Sadly, the distinct Slavonian humor-marked by its sharp cynicism and dark undertones, yet largely unfamiliar outside the region-doesn't fully shine through in the film. Slavonians might find it charming if they view it through this lens, but for others, it'll likely fall flat, as Slavonia remains something of a black hole to the outside world.