As a Czech I can have a sober perspective on this movie. Petr Jakl did stunts in American movies and is eager to make an American movie of his own. This unfortunately results in some overly dramatic and/or hardly believable moments. Anyway it's true that in 90s after the fall of the communism was our country like wild west full of corrupt cops and whatnot. We may never truly know whether Kajinek really killed someone and it's important to say that this movie is just another European thriller, not a real life story. The quality of the movie is OK, given the fact that it was directed by a former stuntman. The cast is good and if you don't expect a Nolan style quality, you will be somewhat entertained. If you like it, I would recommend you another movie of this era - Sametovi vrazi.
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vit-onderka30 November 2012
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blumdeluxe18 July 2020"Kajínek" tells the story of a man behind bars whose case seems to be politically motivated and not on a very solid basis. Will the people on his side find a way to set him free?
I honestly have a problem with this sort of movie. Either you make it a documentary and ask the important questions or you make a movie but to make a movie like this in the end feels rather like a political statement than entertainment which in cases like this can be problematic (It is not problematic in general). This being said, a lot of the scenery in the movie seems taken over from american prison movies, I honestly hope that this is not how a czech prison works. The characters are rather one-dimensional, the acting is not always on point. The plot itself is okay but it is nothing to keep you sitting on the edge of your seat.
All in all this movie is entertaining enough to give it a try but I really think that a documentary about the topic would have been better. Somehow this film is sitting between all chairs. -
CurtHerzstark2 November 2011Entertaining albeit somewhat flawed crimethriller/biopic loosely based on real life czech gangster Jiri Kajinek.
This film starts with a female lawyer(Tatiana Vilhelmová) who starts investigating Kajineks case and quickly realises that not everything is in order.
Kajinek (Konstantin Lavronenko)however doesn't really believe in her sincerity and plans his escape from prison.
The films biggest flaw is the romanticized depiction of Kajinek and the crimes that he may or not have committed. Also (I suspect) takes a lot of factual liberties of this real life gangsters deeds.
However this is expected when watching a movie chronicling a gangsters life.
But if you have nothing else to see a Sunday night this film will be the right type of entertainment that you might want to see.
According to some sources on the internet (czech version of wikipedia, newspaper articles etc) Kajinek as seen as Robin Hood figure in Czech republic among the public, however it seems very unlikely that he committed these crimes to serve anybody but himself.