Tri karte za Hollywood

Another excellent comedy by Bozidar Nikolic, who made a name for himself in Serbian cinema (even though he's Montenegrin) after directing a 1984 classic "Balkanski spijun".

"Tri karte za Hollywood" takes place in a fictional small town of Gornje Polje (sort of Anytown, Serbia) during the time when eyes of the world were focused on Cuban missile crisis wondering if World War III is about to start. Further raising tensions among locals is the imminent visit of Marshal Tito who is due to pass through town on his famous Blue train.

In a place where everybody is consumed with politics, some are ardent Russophiles, while others are in awe of American lifestyle and yet others are oppurtunist, smalltimer drones looking for personal gains during this looming world political reshuffle. Overlooking them all is 'Narodna vlast' - Tito's communist regime embodied in police chief Gavrilo Milentijevic (Branislav Lecic) and his deputy Zikica Grujic (Bogdan Diklic) who are busy up to their necks with preparing a grandiose reception for Marshal, keeping the lid on town's factions and secretly squabbling for career points in the eyes of more important Party officials....

As opposed to "Balkanski spijun" which is a typical Dusan Kovacevic screenplay with limited number of characters all revolving around a central theme, Nikolic here successfully tries something different and slightly, but only slightly, more lighthearted with Zeljko Mijanovic's script which juggles multiple themes with a lot more characters. Also, he is going for laughs a little more than in "Spijun", a technique that works in most of the movie but for a few scenes which lack genuineness. Actors do an exceptional job and the look of the movie is good.

Conclusion: Definitely see this movie if you get a chance to, it's excellent!

Serbia (and other ex-Yu and Balkan countries) has always represented both geographical and political border between West and East. Due to it's unique and unfavorable position, it always had regimes that didn't lean too much into either side - more conservative than the West, more liberal than the East. The result of that was that all regimes were regularly confusing messes, uncommitted and unsure of what they are. Such regimes always tended to favor opportunists and suck-ups rather than actually competent people. Whether it was communists, monarchists or democrats - it was always the same.

Because of their dissatisfaction with never-changing situation, a lot of people developed near cult level love for either West (in this movie represented by USA) and Russia, seeing them both as bastions of freedom and examples of what an ideal world should look like. However, that irrational love comes from ignorance, despair and pure contrarianism that is not based on any facts and result of it is bunch of ignorant people willing to defend their beliefs to death be it against anyone - family, friends, neighbors - it all goes.

This movie perfectly captures all sides of this broken society: regime loyalists, pro-Western and pro-Russian fanatics and people who just try to live their normal lives and pursue their own dreams and passions. And it's last ones that end up suffering the most, due to their voices always being silenced by much louder first 3 groups that keep both ignoring them and disrespecting them while they're caught up in their eternal non-existing conflict. If this movie wasn't a comedy, it would have been a painful to look at tragedy, due to how close it hits to home. It shows why laugh really is the best defense mechanism.

Now, of course, movie itself is by no means flawless masterpiece. There are some plotlines and characters that feel unimportant in grand scheme of things and some of the performances are maybe a little too over the top for some people's tastes, but the positives here heavily outweigh the negatives. I love this movie, I watched it many times already and I will definitely watch it again in the future.

10 stars.

Core The beginning was nice, but as the movie progress you realize it's nothing but cheap empty jokes with bunch of unfunny elements and personal disputes.

The ending was terrible as well, what is actual point of this movie? If its criticism of communistic party ruled at that time it failed greatly.

Photography The photography is somewhat good, for that period almost perfect! Camera movement as well, nice and steady.

I don't get the part with the nudity and sexual activities, wats the point of that? It happens so often and If point was bringing "life" in to the bad movie, again it failed greatly.

This movie is a must for all the people who want to learn the unique mentality of Yugoslav people (mostly people from Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina). The plot is in a fictional village in Serbia that has all of the characteristics of a real place, even the name ''Gornje Polje'' (Upper field in Serbian) is a common name for Serbian villages. It shows the silly fear and nonsense that the communist regime in Yugoslavia and its president Josip Broz Tito imposed on the nation. The rising of illiterate poltroons on vital functions, the jealousy and hate towards family members because of that fear etc. In a comic and ironic way, that is typical for Balkan nations, it is beautifully shown how the ideological splitting of a nation looks like. Serbia and other Balkan countries are on the crossroad between East and West, thus there were (and still are) those who support Russia and those who support the EU and USA (in the movie it's those who support communism and the USSR and those who support capitalism and the USA). Also, the huge problem of Serbs - they think that they are in the spotlight of attention for everything and that their help and support can make a huge difference (specifically in the movie it's the event of Cuban missal crisis and Bay of pigs invasion and the conflict between Kennedy and Khrushchev), so they start a huge ideological fight, and when they're done fighting nobody knows why the fight happened. Strongly recommend this movie! Love from Serbia

If you want to do satire, be honest, and don't be dumb.

This film is both dumb and dishonest. It is supposed to be satire about communist Yugoslavia, but it doesn't really have anything intelligent to say, so it spends most of the time trying to be a comedy. The humour is very bad, though. The gags and dialogue are exaggerated and reek of desperation, as the filmmakers throw in everything but the kitchen sink in hope of making us laugh. None of it helps when you lack the ability to write a humorous screenplay.

I find this film incredibly annoying and completely pointless.