A beautiful, satirical portrayal of the late 80's typical Yugoslav company, that functions without any economic logic, and common sense. Zoran Cvijanovic, is Radovoje ulejic an up and coming young executive, that built his career on sucking up to higher management, and showing entrepreneur abilities in socialist economy, which basically means to take very good care of his own interests on public expense. He has a good roll model to learn from, his own father that lost his job 20 years ago because he stood up against crooks in management of the company he worked for. Radivoje is not to make the same mistake, so no matter how incompetent he is in doing his job, he'll make it up by being ready to provide any service to his boss. And the boss is just the opposite, the director Miodrag Krtalić (Ljubia Samardić), is honest, hard working executive, that despises leeches like Radivoje ulejic, and is, by nature of the system he lives in, bound to be destroyed by the likes of him. Yugoslav political and economic system provided the perfect environment for sleazy poltroons that are thriving in former Yugoslav countries even today. This film perfectly shows all the abnormalities of that system, and in funny and satirical manner. Needless to say the spineless worm wins at the end, and the righteous suffer a stroke. 8 out of 10
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mim-817 November 2008
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andrejvasiljevic8 May 2011Sinisa Pavic again... but this time, and would you believe it, it's actually good. Yes, I think "Poltron" or "Arse Licker" is actually a pretty solid comedy. Not perfect or brilliant, but very decent and humorous in it's own way. Made in the late 1980s, when socialist Yugoslavia was counting it's lat days, "Poltron" comes as a satirical depiction of a corrupt state run company where no one seems to be doing anything meaningful, yet with paychecks coming every month.
Actually, the CEO is the only one who wants to do something, and he's pretty much alone in there... It costs him his wife, his health, his decency and eventually his job. Now, "Poltron" may be a comedy, but the (un)working habits described in the movie were not so far from the truth back in the Yugoslav communist era. Employment was granted by the constitution, and getting fired was almost an impossible task. Naturally, everyone used these flexible terms and reduced their productivity to a minimum, while the wages were payed up by the national budget... heaven, isn't it? Well you should acknowledge that the result of such an easy life was a massive credit debt, inflation and eventually civil war with a total bloody break up of the country. "Poltron" was filmed in 1989., 2 year before the whole hell was set loose, but still, if anyone was looking for a reason why it happened, there you have it... see the movie.
But don't take these socio-political analogies as a major story line. "Poltron" is a comedy and it should make you laugh. In short - a rotten socialist company has many employees, very little productivity and the only person with any ambition and working energy, the Director, fails miserably in his efforts. Ljubisa Samardzic, Mira Furlan, Zoran Cvijanovic, Milan Gutovic and all others have done a good job in this satirical movie.