Kobova garáž

I don't have a problem with the direction or the performances, yet I feel that the rating for the film is exaggerated. While I'm not familiar with Zdeněk Zapletal's literary source, the premise seems solid, but the potential isn't fully realized due to the creative team's overly ambitious approach. The story of a group of young delinquents from a detention center, a criminal act, and their escape certainly has emotional power, but it all falls apart due to the attempt to graft these events onto a critique of the pre-November era and an effort to send a message to the viewer about the corruption of "real socialism." This story could have easily unfolded with minor variations in 1980 as well as in 2010. The individual character stories play out in parallel, without converging again. Some motifs are unnecessary, or rather, they would have been better suited for separate storylines. The writer and director simply wanted to serve the viewer too much. The explanatory commentary by Pavel Kříž is overly descriptive and essentially unnecessary. The narrator's romantic relationship, the unintended pregnancy, the escape of two wards, their struggle with life, and their experiences in the detention center - all of this is indeed interesting, but in one TV play, it's just too much. The screenplay needed refinement and a focus on the essentials. Overall impression: 45%. (2009.08.13)