“It’s smarter to live a year as a tiger than twenty years as a turtle,” Nikodem Skotarczak says out the beginning of the Polish crime drama How I Fell In Love With a Gangster (Netflix), and the brazen and pleased “Nikos” becomes one of the nation’s most notable criminals, and perhaps a kind of society legend.
That’s the angle Gangster takes, anyway, as it spins out Nikos’ life of crime over a leisurely three-hour run-time.
Should You Watch It or Skip It?
The Gist: “Inspired by the life of” Nikodem Skotarczak, a disclaimer at the start of How I Fell In Love With A Gangster reads; “partly fictionalized.”
And director Maciej Kawulski just adds to that assurance of an unreliable narration by introducing exactly that, a mysterious woman in the current day who recaps the life story of “Nikos” to an eager youthful journalist.
Read also: Who is in the cast of Poldark Season 6?
The action begins in the mid-1960’s down on the docks of Gdansk, as a scrappy little kid learns to change cash from local endures, and continues into the early seventies, where Nikos (Tomasz Zietek) plays rugby and busts heads as a bouncer prior to entering the criminal enterprise of Inkblot (Eryk Lubos).
After a short time Nikos and his dearest friend Komo (Antoni Krolikowski) are boosting cars and changing cash in Budapest, Romania, which in Cold War Europe is where East meets West.
Nikos, handsome and easygoing to a fault, is a conceived winner, and the criminal life comes to him with ease. He marries once, has a child, marries again, and has a daughter; he takes care of everybody, and his hidden world career succeeds.
In 1979, he opens a casino; by 1980, his operation smuggling cars from Germany into Poland and chopping them up for black market parts is thriving. He purchases a ranch for his family to live on.
He even purchases his old neighborhood soccer team. And all the while, married or not, Nikos stays associated with Milena (Agnieszka Grochowska), a prostitute with a heart of gold and probably the main individual who might at any point see Nikos’ actual heart.
Sometimes, crime does pay, and that’s especially valid for Nikos and his team. He’s the nation’s top bootlegger, the “King of the Coast.” But at this point it’s the eighties, cocaine is in the picture, and there’s also a German police inspector to stress over.
Rival criminal interests are coming for Nikos, as well, and the arrests and prison meats pile up as Poland’s most famous gangster submits completely to his addictions. Crime pays, yet it also demands blood.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?
Gangster star Tomasz Zietek also featured in the Netflix title Operation Hyacinth, about a homicide investigation in the gay community of 1980’s Communist Poland.
Also read: What is the release date of “The Baker and the Beauty season 2”?
And Eryk Lubos, who is so great here as the local crime master Inkblot, also co-starred in Underdog, Gangster director Maciej Kawulski’s award-winning 2019 exertion that dove into the universe of MMA fighting.
Performance Worth Watching
In a film populated with a swath of beautiful hidden world characters stretching across three decades and as many European countries, Sebastian Fabijanski’s Silvio is a constant standout.
Scarred, coked-up, when in doubt, and always seeming to stick his head into each frame like a leering lizard with a scar, Fabijanski gives Silvio a screen presence that has violence hovering around it like a converse halo of some sort.
Memorable Dialog
As Nikos opens an illegal however extremely, profitable casino in 1979, it might as well be the Wild West in Gdansk. At the gambling tables were “Militia officers, and hordes of criminals and runners,” Nikos‘ brother by marriage tells the camera. “Which was which? Back then, at that point, it made no difference.”
Our Take
In How I Fell In Love With a Gangster the unnamed narrator isn’t the main individual with a story to tell. All through, characters break the fourth wall to quibble with the details of how the story is being told, or to attempt to separate legend from fact.
The film itself rewinds to reveal the story a different way, or to emphasize a particular flashback second. Indeed, even Nikos puts some English on the narrative spin.
He’s hounded by a vision (a phantom?) of his more youthful self that always reminds him of where he came from, but on the other hand it’s a vision that gets harder to see as his appetite for additional medications and cash gets ever more grounded. “I believe in cash,” a tranquilized up Nikos tells Komo, and his friend can shake his head.
“You used to believe in individuals.”
Also read: Why is ‘Stranger things 4 part 2’ a worth watch?
STREAM IT. It’s a bit excessively lengthy, however I Fell In Love With a Gangster relishes in that time enjoyed with a central criminal character who could always grin his way in the clear, right up until he proved unable.
FAQs
Is How I Fell in Love With a Gangster Genuine Story?
‘How I Fell in Love with a Gangster’ is a Polish crime drama that follows the life of Nikodem ‘Nikos‘ Skotarczak. Based on obvious stories, the film tries to record the life of the notorious gangster as told by various sources.
Who Plays Nikos in How I Fell in Love With a Gangster?
The action begins in the mid-1960’s down on the docks of Gdansk, as a scrappy little kid learns to change cash from local endures, and continues into the early seventies, where Nikos (Tomasz Zietek) plays rugby and busts heads as a bouncer prior to entering the criminal enterprise of Inkblot (Eryk Lubos).
Is There an After Collided 3?
It’s official, After fans: the third and fourth films are coming. Before After We Collided, even hit cinemas in the US, the two stars of the franchise recently confirmed that the third (After We Fell) and fourth (After Ever Happy) films have officially started filming.
Conclusion
Nikodem “Nikos” Skotarczak, perhaps of the most notorious gangster in Poland’s history is the subject of Maciej Kawulski’s new Netflix film. Haven’t heard of Kawulski’s work? Obviously, you have – 365 Days.
Presently if 365 Days was a rather presumptuous spin-off from the 50 Shades of Gray franchise, then wait till you brave How I Fell in Love with a Gangster (Jak pokochalam gangstera) – galloping ahead for a three-hour runtime – and especially reminiscent of Goodfellas and Casino films. Reminiscent or wannabe?
I realize which word suits worse. In any case, Kawulski’s indulgence is so palpable and heavy here-as if shedding a light on an entire generational history-the single word I realize that suits it best is a disappointment.
Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below and do not forget to visit trendingnewsbuzz for more mind-boggling updates.
