Mission London

I have never been to Bulgaria yet and do not know the culture deeply. But the movie was funny.. Kinda crazy comedy where the story keeps tangling more and more.. It's funny how the characters escape from the absurd situation they got themselves into...

This is the first Bulgarian movie that has done everything professionally - the producing, the marketing and advertising, the vision and sound of the film etc. The commercial success of Mission London is of great importance because if there is profit - more companies will be attracted to invest in Bulgarian cinema. Therefore I really hope the movie gets a good revenue and for now it seems like it would succeed in this mission due to the record breaking audience that it attracted during it's first week. Thanks to a very good advertising campaign and extensive media coverage everybody in Bulgaria is talking about Mission London.

So everything involving the organization and the promoting of the movie was executed fantastically. However the movie itself in my opinion fails to live up to the expectations set by the trailers. Some of the acting is poor due to the casting. The screenplay is too chaotic and the directing only amplifies this feeling. In a few words I could describe Mission London as a mediocre attempt at reinterpretating Guy Ritchie's modern British style cinema of the previous decade (Snatch, Lock stock and two smoking barrels) and mixing it with some typical Bulgarian absurdness. Sadly though the result is neither as intense, complicated and funny as Ritchie's nor is it thoroughly exploring the absurd Bulgarian characters and modern politics. It's a movie that tried to imitate and be original at the same time and unfortunately it didn't succeed at both. Another problem is that Guy Ritchie's style has passed it's time and is already too exploited and Mission London doesn't bring anything new to it. On the contrary the director even picked Alan Ford to play a similar character as he did in Snatch.

In the end I would like to say that i'm hoping Bulgarian cinema will attract more sponsors and the producers will try to make movies at a bigger scale. Mission London is the first bold attempt and it's a good start. For those who are really interested in modern Bulgarian cinema I really want to recommend them watching "Zift", "The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner" or "Eastern Plays"! New films from young directors that really impress and show that there is a lot of talent here that just needs to be given the chance to work. Because even though the three movies I mentioned were done with very low budgets the results are really fascinating!

For years, I've heard Bulgarian audiences wonder why we cannot produce a movie that holds up when compared to Hollywood comedies. Well, now we have. And the result is pretty satisfying. The first thing that struck me about the movie was how professionally it was made. The camera-work, the editing, the sound mixing, everything was of a pretty high standard, which is not something that Bulgarian films have recently managed. The acting was generally mediocre and the dialogue was sloppy at times, but overall all scenes were watchable, even the more talky ones. The focus of the movie was not in the performances anyway. The tempo was brilliant. At one point I thought the scenes were too short and the film would lack cohesiveness, but by the ending this style of editing makes sense and the film plays great, seeming neither too short, nor too long. While this is predominantly a comedy, deeper themes are there and they are examined in a non-intrusive way even if they are mainly Bulgarian-specific. Being able to understand all the jokes will enhance the viewing immensely but that does not mean that foreign audiences will not appreciate the film.

Overall I give it 8/10 simply because the movie is head and shoulders above any Bulgarian comedy that has been attempted in the last decades. For non-Bulgarian audiences the film is a solid 7.

I'm not a Bulgarian, but I absolutely loved this movie (well, in the beginning it seemed a bit vague, but soon the jokes began to fall out of the closet), probably because I'm from the same region and sharing similar history, therefore I have recognized many of the cultural clichés used in the movie. I loved the character of the President's wife, as well as the ambassadors. Well casted and brilliantly written. Loved the worried British ornithologist part. These scenes beautifully infiltrated some of the English clichés - as we, Eastern Europeans see them - into the movie. Overall I am really happy that Bulgarians could produce such a movie. Never could have happened in Lithuania - we are too serious. It's very brave and it's a talent to be able to laugh from yourself.

Let me straighten this up-the movie isn't bad at all, but I think, the main problem of Bulgarian movies isn't the lack of ideas, but the lack of genre.When i walked in, the posters as well as the trailer, talked about some kind of a comedy.This isn't a comedy-it has funny moments, but one can count them easily, because they were that few.And at least 50 percent of them, and that means three, were in the trailer.

The movie has politics involved in it, but it isn't a political movie either-this is a movie with fine actors, both Bulgarian and British, but without doubt, a movie made mostly for Bulgarians-there are political references, only a Bulgarian can understand, and jokes made specifically for them.

The acting was one of the things i liked, but when a movie doesn't stick up to it's genre, you can't be sure, if those were one-time performances, or not.Alan Ford, a British actor, known mostly with his parts in Guy Ritchie's movies, wasn't at his regular level.He was good, but looked a little bit spooked and shy in a foreign movie.

Something i liked was the cinematography-the movie was shot in great style i little bit blurry and old-fashioned, but in a good way- and that's the director to blame-hi did a fine job in this movie-making aspect.

The one thing about the plot, i really don't understand is, how the ending adds up with the rest of the movie.The one thing i don't like about movies, is when it is all the same in the end.The characters haven't evolved, the whole situation hasn't been changed since the very beginning.Nothing changed, except a few missing ducks and a dead man lying on a pavement-that's all,Nothing really matters.Nothing significant to appreciate and value as useful the rest of the time.

Overall, this movie isn't bad, it just isn't what it promises to be.Above average, considering all the American "movies", that are flushing out of nowhere, but could've been way better.With this fresh story, and talented actors, and the charisma one could accomplish in the middle of two different religions, traditions, cultures, worlds, this could've been a pretty memorable and intriguing roller-coaster ride.

My rate would've been a little lower, but considering the obvious fact i'm a Bulgarian, i just can't rate it lower...Instead of a six, i'm giving it a seven...

My rate: 6.5/10