Morte às Seis da Tarde

I found this a little bit of a cross between "Se7en" and "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo". Within five minutes, my phone was down and the movie had ensnared me.

Our intelligent yet churlish protagonist, (nice when they're not perfect or even friendly), jars the opening scenes with her aberrant behaviour. The swings are so opposingly stark between moods, all unpleasant- that it is a too intriguing hook by the director. Even before the first body drops. Now, I am too engaged by the protagonist's wit and motivations to care where my phone is.

The pacing and action match well to the context and storyline. Nearly all characters have been developed extremely well in the short amount of time given for a movie.

A few plot twists were pleasantly surprising which is always rather lovely.

Did watch it dubbed as I enjoy reading and hearing all the parts lost in English translation.

Overall, I found the movie intelligent, witty, and well written. The actors were great to watch. This movie has been far better than anything I have thus seen this year. Perhaps not in scale, budget, etc. However it was a welcoming change as an audience member, not to be treated as an imbecile for once, (or marketed to as if I would be on my phone the entire time.)

It's as if none of the people writing the negative reviews have ever known real Polish people. The acting was well above average, as was the storyline. Just because you have no knowledge of a culture, doesn't mean you should criticize its films. More evidence of the declining IQs on this platform.

I can't think of many Polish films, but perhaps I need to dig a little deeper, I enjoyed this one, a good thriller, nicely made, with some pretty harrowing scenes. There was a degree of originality about it, it's good.

I would recommend watching it in its original form with subtitles, as the dubbed version that I watched felt so odd, the voices didn't seem to fit the characters.

It's solid, 7/10.

Starts out as a buddy thriller - 2 mismatched oddballs teamed to fund a killer then veers - quite unbelievably- into something else. The all business cop with the haunted eyes is familiar and the actress brings real authenticity there. FemAle rage in general plays a major. certainly a worthy watch with a couple decent twists.

The Plagues of Breslau: Set in Wroclaw (Breslau) Poland. A serial Killer is imitating the methods used to execute criminals in 18th Century Breslau. Sewn inside cowhides which shrink in the sun, torn apart by horses. They have their crimes branded in their bodies. Helena is a troubled DI who must solve these crimes aided by oddballs like her sergeant who loves to take selfies and a tough profiler with a chip on her shoulder. There's also a publicity seeking alcoholic prosecutor and a ruthless television reporter. Perhaps too many quirky characters though the film has elements of satire as the killer is intent on uncovering corruption in public life. Directed and written by Patryk Vega. 6/10. On netflix.