For almost two decades I've been in the delusion that this film is based on basketball, which I am not least interested in, and for that reason, I did not see it until tonight. when I realized what it is about, I decided to give it a shot. I did not regret this decision, but I'm not thrilled either.
The film is about a group of young men, their families and neighbors, during the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, about people who refuse to succumb to despair and try to maintain sanity and an illusion of normal life as much as possible. The local basketball court has been demolished during the bombing and they join forces to restore it and play the basket again, despite the everyday airborne danger. A film about family, friendship, love, youth, memories of better times, traditional Serbian defiance and suffering.
The story is simple, but full of emotion and life. Actors that we are accustomed to seeing in almost every domestic movie deliver their usual performance - they are not bad, but they are far from excellent. Technically, the film is on par with the most domestic films of its generation, but I think that we are all used to cheap production and we no longer pay attention to it. Personally, in domestic movies after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, I pay attention only to the story and acting, and here both of these aspects are above average. I was irritated only by the ending, because I think it is totally unnecessary tragic. The movie sent its message even without the death of the main character, which is, in my opinion, there only as a trick to elicit tears from the audience and to seemingly intensify the power of the film. Two hours of bad movie with a powerful ending will most probably leave a better overall impression than a top movie that fails in the end. The whole movie has quite equable strength and atmosphere, so the final punch felt inadequate and pathetic. I mean, it was pretty predictable and expected, but I was still hoping that I was wrong and that maybe screenwriter intentionally misleads us to finally surprise us with something completely different. It seems, however, that it is quite naive to expect the original plot twist from a domestic movie.
7/10