Az ember, aki nappal aludt (2003) Poster

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6/10
Underestimated and misunderstood piece
borg427 December 2004
Seb, a reckless cop smells some odd deal going down. He finds himself suspended and framed soon afterwards, and his only chance to clear his name is to be faster than the guys who are after him...

Critics hated this film of respected film-maker László Szabó, overlooking the fact that he has not been active for a long period, it's his first action movie and he had very low budget and tight timeframe. All that definitely have an effect on the film, but we've seen much worse which started off with better background (Apám beájulna, Európa expressz, Magyar vándor, for instance). The basic story and structure is okay, the worst thing is the screenplay, some more time for rewrites would definitely have done good for the script. Character basics are fine as well, the film features A-class actors, but their performance is hindered by the inadequate level of action movie character direction.

The upside of the film is that it has brilliant atmosphere (reminiscent of '70s-'80s Hungarian crime films) and the thread of the man who hides Seb is done really well (nota bene this is the part where the film gets good, when it's not all about action and crime). These may be covered by negative aspects, but nevertheless it's still a very rare gift in present Hungarian film-making. With some script and dialogue rewrites, braver directing, chance to re-shoot some scenes and more time given for cutting, this could have been a very good film. Too bad it did not quite come out like that in the end, there is a good deal of wasted potential.
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