The Story of a God-Father

A lot of things are just "wannabes", many of the actors are terrible and there is nothing better than the best part set after the revolution by the end, but Ondřej Vetchý is more than good, the relatively reasonable runtime goes by quick, so why not? Definitely better than Kajínek or Edgemen, but on the other hand it probably didn't take much effort to overcome such poor imitations. (05/17/2014)

According to the main protagonist, the mobster Vedral, the worst thing is to die of fear. That is perhaps what the filmmakers said to themselves, so the most notable aspect of Story of a Godfather is its complete predictability – not in terms of plot twists, however, but in terms of the whole concept. If we approach the film as if it’s another addition to the bountiful czechsploitation category, it has absolutely nothing with which it could surprise us. This is how it differs from other czechsploitation movies of recent years, such as Kajínek, Unknown Hour and Czech Made Man, where it was possible to appreciate at least the genre and stylistic ambitions of the filmmakers or, conversely, to laugh at their artlessness and incompetence. Story of a Godfather is just a straightforward tabloid feature-film version of an investigative-journalism TV show that indirectly confirms for us the decadence of contemporary Czech society, whose prejudices and values it indirectly reflects. (12/01/2013)

Here you can see why the best Scorsese films are about three hours long. Sure, it's nonsense to compare the technical and financial resources of Czech cinema with what has always been available to the aforementioned master (not to mention the talent pool of actors!), but the difference is simply abysmal. The premise of The Story of a God-Father isn’t pointless, it could be the base of a story about the criminal activities of the main "hero" and then add supporting pillars embracing both the two different political regimes and the diligent work of police investigators, but the screenplay is a waste of time. It's not that the story doesn't flow easily, because it does, with furious interludes somewhere on the level of a detective TV show that are separated by several years in a flash, and before we can fully realise what a bastard Vedral actually is and what a powerful empire he has built, we are already watching the closing credits. And that's a shame, because Nikolaev knows his craft, and when he has an interesting script, he’s proven he can make something interesting with it. The Story of a God-Father also has a great cast, who unfortunately are imprisoned in their cookie-cutter characters with basically no room for development. That said, it’s reasonably above-par, at least it shows us what our country is like and what kind of people actually run the politics. 70% (08/06/2014)

After some time, another Czech film that is definitely worth attention appears, because this is something you won't see in cinemas just like that. The fact that someone tried to film something that is still quite controversial (the life of František Mrázek), even though only touching on the subject, is commendable. At least the Czech nation will see what kind of rubbish we have here, since they don't want to read books about it. Ondřej Vetchý was brilliantly chosen for the main role, the other characters remain somewhat in the background, except for Lukáš Vaculík's portrayal. Vica Kerekes can notch another success by sleeping with a Czech star in a film. The almost uselessness of some characters is definitely at least partially erased by the courage with which certain scenes were filmed. The violence is very intense in some places. Go see it, so you know where you live and finally lose all illusions. "The Godfather's Story", "Rubbish" and Czech elections. That tells enough about us. (10/27/2013)

This is technically excellent, dosing the wild nineties in the visual diction of a striking music video, and drags behind itself the most "wannabe" mafia epic ever made here. Ployhar's camera can fly like at a fair, but later you begin to suspect that this is more traditional Czech shallowness, where you don't know if it's lacking a dramaturgist or just money for an extra half hour. (05/20/2014)