I was expecting a rollicking crime saga in an Eastern European setting, but that's not what I got.
For one thing, it seemed a lot longer than 97 minutes, due to the fact that neither storyline nor actors ever rise above a quasi-catatonic state. It's not boring, exactly, and the plot does kind of shuffle along, but the direction and tone are kept deliberately at idle for the entire duration, never allowed to build any momentum. Even the shootout scene looks like no-one's particularly interested whether they get shot or not.
The story is really confusing and rather aimless. You find out soon enough that all the characters are corrupt and unreliable, starting with the hero, and soon everyone is triple-crossing everyone else in a tangle so thick that it's impossible to tell whether it all adds up to a consistent story. I cannot, hand on heart, tell you whether this film has a plot twist in it or not. I could not follow any of the lead characters' motivations, and thus I was surprised time and again by apparently arbitrary behaviour, but I really don't know whether the writers were deliberately trying to pull surprises, or whether the whole thing is just a bit of a gluey mess.
From an aesthetic perspective the film is also unexciting, with a beige colour palette and overused classical music hits on the soundtrack.
For no reason whatsoever, the film gets a coda in Singapore's Gardens by the Bay, to the backdrop of a generic sound-and-light show involving gigantic fake steel trees and more hackneyed snippets of classical music. This scene is rather unnecessary and its location appears completely arbitrary, and I can only surmise this is a piece of particularly inelegant product placement.
For one thing, it seemed a lot longer than 97 minutes, due to the fact that neither storyline nor actors ever rise above a quasi-catatonic state. It's not boring, exactly, and the plot does kind of shuffle along, but the direction and tone are kept deliberately at idle for the entire duration, never allowed to build any momentum. Even the shootout scene looks like no-one's particularly interested whether they get shot or not.
The story is really confusing and rather aimless. You find out soon enough that all the characters are corrupt and unreliable, starting with the hero, and soon everyone is triple-crossing everyone else in a tangle so thick that it's impossible to tell whether it all adds up to a consistent story. I cannot, hand on heart, tell you whether this film has a plot twist in it or not. I could not follow any of the lead characters' motivations, and thus I was surprised time and again by apparently arbitrary behaviour, but I really don't know whether the writers were deliberately trying to pull surprises, or whether the whole thing is just a bit of a gluey mess.
From an aesthetic perspective the film is also unexciting, with a beige colour palette and overused classical music hits on the soundtrack.
For no reason whatsoever, the film gets a coda in Singapore's Gardens by the Bay, to the backdrop of a generic sound-and-light show involving gigantic fake steel trees and more hackneyed snippets of classical music. This scene is rather unnecessary and its location appears completely arbitrary, and I can only surmise this is a piece of particularly inelegant product placement.