I’ve been a soccer fan since I was a kid, when my late father took me to the game. In the ’90s I’ve made several trips to hot spots, and recently I’ve been regularly tearing my throat chanting Ligia on the only right podium, and I’ve also had the chance to be in many memorable places like “Welcome to Hell” with Widzew Łódź. And though I’ve never been a hooligan, as you’ve probably guessed, I do follow fan life in Poland, especially in the context of the ultras scene. And this community, which looks at people’s comments on websites like Kibice.net or Stadion Oprawcy, was also very skeptical about the Furioza movie. Why, given the attempts to get close to the topic so far – see “Winged Pigs” – I’m not at all surprised.
Furioza (2021) – movie review (Kino wiat). Troubleshooter or bandit?
Let’s start with one thing – this is not a football fan movie similar to The Great Football Factory or a decent Netflix Ultras movie (movie) Browse here), talking about fans from Naples. First of all, it is a really interesting cinema for viewers who love this genre, many chapters better than most of the Vega films mentioned above. Gangsters dominate the second half of the picture, but the production makes strong references throughout to the fan movement in Poland. for better or worse. There are fights in the woods, fights between fans in the ring, stripping of sector tickets, stopping the band carrying fans for a match with the brakes, dilemmas, whether to run around town with equipment or barefoot, pay with the police, travel in a singing coach and also about why not go Girls to matches on enemy territory. Since the film is somewhat inspired by real events, we also find situations related to those that actually happened.
For example, cutting off an arm with a machete (following a dispute between Huesca and Krakow fans), or slapping a local football player in the club’s parking lot (it was once loud in Warsaw), making the club’s colors bad. Results. Sometimes it comes naturally and works well with the script, and sometimes it seems like the viewer is trying to recreate situations unnecessarily. There are also tastes for “kumaty” such as the abbreviation Furioza f’97, which can rightly be associated with t’97 (Toryści 97, Legia Warszawa militia). It is a pity that there is no mention of the real clubs in Furiosa. Actors walk around in scarves of different colors, but a watchful eye will notice only the names of the fictional teams from Gdynia or Szczecin, after all, the events of the film take place in Pomerania. For someone who goes to the cinema just to see a good movie, which Furioza sure is, it wouldn’t matter at all, but it annoyed me a little.
Furioza (2021) – movie review (Kino wiat). Brothers are not lost
The main plot of the film tells about the fate of three friends from an apartment building. Goldina (Mateusz Damecki), Dzika (Weronica Kskevich), and David (Mateusz Panasyuk). Once a well-coordinated team traveled together on their team trips, today they stand on different sides of the barrier. Still one of the troublemakers, Golden has escaped his old life to become a doctor, and Dzica is now a seasoned cop trying to infiltrate the local crime squads. And she’s the one who makes David an offer he can’t refuse—either the boy will be her plug, or his brother, Kashub (the excellent Wojciech Zelensky, who plays the hooligan leader, nickname Furiozy), is going to prison with a long sentence.
Well, it sounds like a typical scenario for another Polish action movie, but the plot is really interesting, often breaks with stereotypes, and the narrative is also driven by supporting actors. ukasz Simlat did very well, playing the powerful acting leader (you can see that he feels great in such roles, because as a policeman he also played brilliantly in the second season of “Rojsta”), Janusz Shapur, who played an older gangster The area rocks, Cesary Shukasevich, the enigmatic character of the Furiozy team, and finally Szymon Bobrowski nicknamed “Mrówka”, the leader of the rioters who compete with Furioza, whose cat-and-mouse play with the police adds even more color to the film.
Mateusz Panasyuk as Kaszub’s younger brother, who’s back to the hooligan, giving up his medical career is definitely a draw for the script. I came out really credible. The formidable Weronika Książkiewicz has also captured the complexion of David’s morally dilemma ex-girlfriend, although the flashbacks themselves are quite modest and a little more can be used to make the characters’ transformations believable. Mateusz Damićki has undergone a complete transformation and is difficult to recognize in the film, although his character is exaggerated at times, even comedy-like and more suited to a football fan of a killer who has trouble controlling his emotions. Although he’s definitely incredibly expressive and is just a role that’s hard to pass up carelessly.
Furioza (2021) – Kino Świat movie review. Just a good cinema
The movie is really well made, the action is fast and some great narrative forms are also used, such as the introduction to the whole story, the amazing epilogue which we will only see in the last part of the movie, a dynamically compiled scene from soccer fans questioning, or footage from a drone Or brutal fights (but as in such films, in group scenes, the camera gets so crazy that sometimes it’s hard to see something). When you combine it with good dialogue, humor and irony (although Sebastian Stankovic’s “Buła”, which is supposed to make a comedic note, sometimes becomes an indigestible caricature of a stereotypical football fan) and an ambiguous ending, you get a movie worth watching.
The painting will be shown for the first time in October, and I highly encourage you to see it. This is one of the most interesting Polish films of recent years, with an excellent cast, expressive characters and a script that can surprise you to the end. Will fans love the production? I think they would be positively surprised, of course, by looking at the fact that there are sometimes far-reaching simplifications here and it’s primarily a movie about brotherly bondage and unfulfilled love made in gangster style, but it’s far from cheap.
The word “kibul” is not demonized here, some people who belong to the hooligan militia are presented as honest people, with principles, although there are also characters who will sell their colleagues for money or police protection. However, it can be said that most of the heroes are characters of flesh and blood, and most importantly – this legendary alchemy is in everything.
