Starring: Olaf Lubaszenko, Wiktoria Gorodeckaja, Jędrzej Hycnar, Magdalena Boczarska
Directed by: Michał Gazda
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Like many other emerging directors, Michał Gazda has been given the opportunity to craft feature films owing to streaming platforms. His name might be unfamiliar for many casual viewers of Netflix, but the visibility of the Łódz-born filmmaker has gone hand in hand with the rise of the streaming giant in Poland. Gazda directed, among others, the drama Znachór (Forgotten Love, 2023) that stands as a robust entry in the Netflix catalogue of non-English films.
For his second full-length effort, Napad (Justice), Gadza worked on a script penned by Bartosz Staszczyszyn that pulls inspiration from a real-life armed robbery to Kredyt Bank in Warsaw. The violent raid, which resulted in 3 female cashiers and a security guard killed, occurred in March 2001. It is worth mentioning though that the plot of Justice takes place one decade earlier.
A crude female prosecutor (Magdalena Boczarska) offers former Communist-era policy servant Tadeusz Gadacz (Olaf Lubaszenko) an opportunity to redeem himself by solving the brutal heist. Detective Aleksandra “Placket” Janicka (Wiktoria Gorodeckaja) is charged with breathing down on Gadacz’s neck and help him with the investigation. The list of suspects is quickly narrowed down to three young men, including Kacper Surmiak (Jędrzej Hycnar),a former watchman of the burgled bank.
Gazda’s crime film is a nostalgic trip into the wild Nineties in Poland during the transition to free-market economy. At that time half of the country was embroiled in an everyday struggle to make ends meet while state-owned factories were dying like flies. Visually Gazda and his crew succeeded in capturing in a scrupulous way the chaotic vibe of that decade when petty business and spontaneous markets would appear overnight.
In one of the scenes of Justice, a poster of the action movie Psy (Pigs, 1992) directed by Władysław Pasikowski, the Polish 1990s’ cult movie par excellence, is on display in a shabby video rental shop. Gadacz finds himself delving into a vaguely dystopic universe in which no one trusts anyone else. This helps to keep the dramatic tension relatively high throughout the film, also courtesy of Lubaszenko who grabs the spotlight despite underplaying his sombre character — the Polish thesp worked twice with Pasikowski in Pigs and earlier with a lead role in Kroll (1991).
As a cinematic valentine to the Nineties in Poland, this well-packed thriller must be certainly appealing also to the streaming generations that did not live those days. It would hold its own even in a movie theatre. And yet Justice is not ennobled with the existentialist and visceral quality of Pasikowski’s outcast characters portrayed in his earlier films. There is a fair chance that time will come for Gazda to garner awards and accolades outside the Netflix universe.
Film Reviewed by Giuseppe Sedia
Published by Kino Mania on January 16, 2025