The Man Who Would Be Polka King

The story is the draw here as it's an "only in america" thing that will leave you scratching your head. The technique is pretty bland but there's some revealing stuff and it's a good watch.

1/29/18. I watched this documentary out of curiosity after watching The Polka King, in which Jack Black plays Jan Lewan. Have to say that Black makes him a much more appealing con man than Lewan actually was in real life. As surreal as Black was as Lewan, you can see why people greedy to make a killing handed over thousands of dollars to him to make a fast buck. Maybe a better way to view this is to watch this first and then watch Black's "The Polka King." You can then appreciate just how good Black is at making Lewan an attractive con man who was able to bilked millions in the end.

Hey, In all honesty, I tuned into this on hulu.com as a goof. Needed some frivolous divertissement and figured "what can be goofier than a polka band?" Instead, I watched a local tragedy of sorts that involves a rigged Mrs Pennsylvania beauty contest, a crash of a tour bus in Florida and the destruction of an individual who may or may not have it coming. The best stories to me aren't the epics of kings and presidents but of usual lives in difficult situations and this documentary focuses on a Polish immigrant who makes his name in the polka community of Pennsylvania and then branches out. Once nominated for a Grammy in the now defunct Best Polka Album in 1995, Jan Lewan would get involved in selling promissory notes with interest returns not unlike Bernie Medoff. The story doesn't end well and it's a fascinating look at a slice of life most of us have no experience with and probably even less interest in. The American Dream gone bad, I suppose. It's a low-budget documentary and, frankly, the home-made aspect of the film adds to the charm of this bizarre story. At just over an hour, it makes its point without wasting one's time.

If you've come to expect sensationalism and dogma in your documentaries or demand art school cred and irony, then this is not a documentary for you. This isn't for those who need to get juiced on a cause du jour or hyper-partisan perspective. This is one of those simply made documentaries, low budget, well-told, interesting, brief (just over an hour), and unexpected.

It's a slice of life drama that won't change your world view, but will remind you of some old lessons. It's a bizarre tale of an immigrant's dream turned fantasy for both himself and those around him and, ultimately, the reckoning of reality vs. dream world.

This thing looks as if it were produced by a local TV station in the 70s.

In addition, I cannot BELIEVE that ANYBODY was gullible enough to buy into the schemes of this guy. Totally ridiculous. Seriously. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE??