Directed by:
Roman KašparovskýScreenplay:
Roman KašparovskýCinematography:
Vladimír SmutnýComposer:
Miroslav ChyškaCast:
Ondřej Vetchý, Jiří Langmajer, Iva Janžurová, Tereza Ramba, Jiří Mádl, Kryštof Hádek, Tatiana Dyková, Marek Taclík, Ondřej Malý, Andrea Růžičková (more)Plots(1)
Two brothers got separated after their first love for the same girl. Richard Rohan is an ex-soldier taking care of his two daughters living in a small town. His brother Mikulas Rohan is a neurosurgery expert living in the capital. Both of them have something which the other one doesn't. We follow their separate lives, their everyday mistakes, their memories to slowly reveal the core of their grudge. Inevitable decisions lead to their most important choice in their lives. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Videos (2)
Reviews (4)
Lousy Bastards has a certain gift and that is that as soon as you start watching it, you will simply finish it. Whether it’s good, whether it’s bad or whether it’s whatever. But the thing is that it’s really whatever and while watching it, you will at times writhe terribly. The thing is I don’t know what Roman Kašparovský had been smoking, but he alternates good moments with moments so stupid that I have yet to see a worse filmmaking combo in Czech film. For instance, the actors are OK. Jiří Mádl seems to have had a really good time portraying his character. I think Ondřej Vetchý was undoubtedly the best actor, he really fitted in those film shots from Afghanistan. But then this good moment is affected by music that sounds like it was composed by an idiot and a scene that seems to have been designed by a cretin, where they steal Jiří Langmajer’s bag in the subway and you start wondering whether you might be watching some random amateur video on YouTube. Lousy Bastards has a great idea but the execution is so incredibly unbalanced that it seems to be heading towards disaster rather then having me think that what I got is a good-quality film. And that really is a pity because it’s definitely not the actors’ fault. And it’s even worse because the cast of actors is pretty good.
()
The cast is really stellar, but that's where the list of positives ends. I haven't seen a more blatant piece of crap in a long time. Now I know at least to steer clear of the name of this screenwriter and director when choosing films in the future. (25%)
()
A dramaturgically catastrophic macho melodrama (with elements of comedy, thriller, softcore porn, war movie, caper flick and psychological drama). It’s not as if the subject matter would make it difficult to construct a coherent story. That is made entirely impossible by the selection and arrangement of information. Based on the large number of “unexpected” revelations in the final act, the viewer’s experience should consist in enjoyment from how everything fits together, not in the numerous ambiguities (Lousy Bastards by no means exhibits the hallmarks of an art film). However, the curt, often downright imbecilic behaviour of the protagonist (Mádl’s idiot behaves the most humanely in the end) and the high concentration of unlikely coincidences do not retrospectively gain any meaning as new information is revealed. Similarly, we ultimately don’t learn the most important things, which are usually good to know from the beginning of a film – e.g. what the characters care about and what their motivations and goals are – so that it’s not just episodic rambling. It’s not clear whether this was supposed to be a story of revenge (but why is it carried out so belatedly – and on a rabbit?), a story depicting the psychological instability of returning soldiers (otherwise, what purpose is the Afghan storyline supposed to serve?), or a picture of the lives of young people in today’s Prague (what other purpose do the events tied exclusively to Voříšková, Mádl and Hádek serve?). Though something is always happening in the film thanks to the psychopathy of most of its characters, the individual events are only tossed together rather than being woven into a logically cohesive whole. Unless all of the action takes place in an alternate universe where – SPOILER ALERT – it is normal to try to shoot your partner before carrying out a planned heist, where a woman suspects she is pregnant a few hours after having intercourse (and if more time has passed between said intercourse and the telephone call with Langmajer, the film gives us no reason to think so), where you try to beat your own brother to death after he sleeps with a woman whom he didn’t know was your girlfriend (and who is thus rather more to blame for being unfaithful), where rain washes away all that is bad and makes two adversaries forget all previous wrongs. The muddled structure and unjustified stylistic bombast (which can be understood as healthy exaggeration only during the Michael Bay-esque chase scene in the centre of Prague) only draw attention away from the banality of the story’s core, the dreadful overacting and the incredible conceptual perversity. The filmmakers’ complete lack of good judgment is most apparent in the macho presentation of men as killing machines and sex machines. The younger women are endlessly horny eye candy, offering their bodies to practically anyone at any time without hesitation; the sole older woman talks only about how she is preparing to die. Perhaps it’s because I don’t watch many Czech films, but I haven’t seen anything this repulsively phallocentric in a long time. The biggest cinematic offence of the year so far. 5%
()
(less)
(more)
If you've seen a lot of contemporary Hollywood and like to vent your weird sexual desires, go to the mountains with it. You get 15 balls, one of the best domestic cameramen, and quality actors. Now you can have some fun. The first half of the film doesn't make sense, and when all the timelines finally intersect, you roar with laughter because you remember that you could have made a film like this if someone had given you the aforementioned resources in high school. It's actually quite an art to put together a movie this bad. On the other hand, if you let Tatiana Vilhelmová talk about fucking bitches, you can't expect anyone to take you seriously. In the end, only Mádl's rolled-up sleeves come out of it with honor.
()
Ads