Life Is Life

I liked this a lot. The whole family was pretty wild, but in a good way (when you're just watching it and not part of it). The filmmakers lightly poked fun at the common prejudices in Czech society. And it was funny, not lame. The only thing I didn’t enjoy much was František’s daydreaming. I would have shortened that or maybe cut it out completely (the poorly done car chases are boring). But otherwise good, really good. (07/06/2015)

I didn’t expect Life is Life to be a silly comedy. And to be honest, I didn’t really know what to think after I watched it for the first time. In any case, I can’t say that I didn’t have a good laugh; I mostly have Ondřej Vetchý to thank for that, as he took the movie to new heights. The story is a fairly sad drama from a life of a family of a proper tyrant. Ondřej Vetchý was downright enjoying himself in this role. The other half of the movie is an absolutely amazing Bond movies parody where the movie’s originality shines through, which was really amusing. In fact, that’s also why I’m giving the movie four stars. I was expecting a melancholic comedy the likes of Love is Love and in the end, I got a clever, polite, crazy Czech comedy that might not know which way to lean sometimes, but it still managed to bring me joy – and that’s something! (06/22/2015)

A comedy with a lack of functional humor, a spectacularly inconsistent atmosphere and a brutally incoherent and random plot. It is sad that Czech filmmakers can make a commercial film at a high technical level (there are even action scenes, car chases and ninjas in this), but they have a terrible problem filling it with meaningful, or at least coherent content. Most of the characters, the situations they experience, and the motifs would better suit a depressing drama, while others are parodies, or even crazy. However, the result is that the film has no genre. It does not entertain, impress, nor does it provide a story that would fit the title of the film, "Life Is Life", because it seems false, unnatural and soulless. (05/20/2015)

This is a bad attempt at making a Czech version of The Man from Acapulco, where at least the scenes that take place in Vetchý's fantasy have a little bit of pizzazz. Otherwise, it's a classic effort to show that family is the most important thing and that everything works out fine if people love each other. Or at least that they will continue to live in their "security". (10/16/2017)

I will admit honestly that I sat down to watch the movie with very low expectations and at first I thought it was a mistake because I laughed a few times and even remembered the line: "You lie and f*** behind our backs!". However, then everything went from bad to worse and not even Frequency 1 could save it. Screenwriter Martin Horský apparently likes Belmondo because he wrote the Czech version of Man from Acapulco, but the result was truly terrible. Well, in any case, I am richer for the experience, although it is one of those experiences that you don't want to repeat (being bitten by any animal, having a burned-down apartment, visiting an executor, stepping on a sea urchin, and so on). (04/08/2021)