Mission London

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.

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!

I've never really appreciated the "modern" Bulgarian humor. It always has to be vulgar and obvious... not to mention repetitive. When I walked into the theater I was expecting to be bored out of my mind and if lucky to catch some Z's. I was pleasantly surprised. The movie had taste. The comedy was well thought through. The plot was interesting and hard to predict. While blown out of proportions Mission London perfectly describes Bulgarian mentality and way of life. And for a nation that gets things done half way this movie was almost perfect with no cutbacks and unnecessary BS.

I'm glad this movie wasn't a disappointment. And will gladly watch it again.

I may be Bulgarian, but I will not close my eyes for the total lack of creativity displayed with this movie. All of Bulgaria was flooded with ads for this movie. And to be honest, while watching the ads I thought "well, this movie might be worth watching"... well, I was wrong.

First the whole concept of the movie is stupid. The actors... They did their best, but it was not enough to compensate for the poor script. They might of tried to make up some better looking tracking devices instead of using 1,5V batteries. The only funny moment of the movie (the grand fiasco) was totally predictable.

I hate to say it, but Bulgarian movie producers have the talent to make some of the worst movies ever (that is all after 1990, there are some great Bulgarian movies before that). Only Germans are able to compete with the lack of creativity and stupidity of Bulgarian movie makers.

For a long time I thought that no one can make a worse movie than a German, but if we keep up the pace, soon Germany will be second and Bulgaria will be the top producer of worthless movies.

Mission London never gets boring and entertains 100%. The actors - most of them very well known to the Bulgarian public and completely unknown to the rest of the world, are full of qualities and motivation to do their best. That makes them very persuasive. In fact this movie is so good, if it was a woman I would have married her brother (Bulgarian way of expressing). Of course it will be fair to say that the humor in the film is directed a little bit more towards the Bulgarians, there are some specific touches connected with the Bulgarian culture and style of living that the Bulgarians will grasp more effectively than others. So in my opinion that makes the film more enjoyable for a Bulgarian than anybody else. But nevertheless this one is a fine piece of a movie. If you watch carefully you will eventually know something more about Bulgarians and a lot more about the way they organize foreign adventures.