I’m All Good: Highlights Deep Humor
The movie ‘I’m All Good’ highlights the deep humor, which is so unique and characteristic of Czech comedies. The characters are peculiar whose main occupation to survive seems to be gulping beer, playing cards and trying their luck in romantic feats. To simply say, they are a happy-go-lucky group of jobless beer guzzlers.
Rating: 3/5
Director: Jan Hrebejk
Writer: Petr Jarchovský
Cast: Jirí Schmitzer, Boleslav Polívka, Lenka Vlasáková, Miroslav Vladyka, Josef Somr, Vladimír Javorský
Film Duration: 1hr 42minutes
Although the characters are weird they cannot be termed shrewd. Mr. Mrklas (Boleslav Polívka) who plays a retired magician stands out from rest of the characters for his portrayal of canny behavior.
Mr. Mrklas resides in a plush house in Prague and the other characters gather on a boat that sails on the Vltava River and takes them around the city. The bunch of friends thus while away the entire day on the deck.
Kaja (Miroslav Vladyka) who sports a constant perplexed look claims to have amassed some amount of wealth by playing cards, by pretending to be chimney sweeper in marriage halls and also posing as a lucky charm in the snaps of newly wed couples! Kaja promises his wife Andula (Lenka Vlasáková) a beach holiday, meanwhile loses all his savings in a shell game. This loss puts him in trouble at home. Out of sheer desperation, he approaches Mr. Mrklas who could get back the little fortune with his magic skills.
The plot of the movie revolves around these interesting and humorous comic moments. The movie exudes a pleasing caper plot, where Mr. Mrklas employs amazing tricks and manipulates the entire gambling game to avenge and regain the lost money from the con artists. This plot of the movie is not revealed in haste, but is in fact disclosed with a dash of humor that is so common in Czech comedies. The movie focuses on a group of friends with no age limit and who are nothing but idle boozers.
‘I’m All Good’ does not follow the conventional way running along the plot, and the movie goes awry while dealing with some comic moments of the movie. The fishing accident, the strange peep show at the sale, as well as the confusion caused due to the wrong police uniforms are all good instances of lack of comic timing. It is better to watch the movie with a continuous smile on your face rather than sitting through its entirety with intermittent few laughter roars.
The director of the movie Jan Hrebejk and the writer Petr Jarchovský have done two movies together “Up and Down” and “Beauty in Trouble”, these two movies are also very similar to the treatment of characters that feature the working class of society and usually involving petty offences that does not land them into any kind of legal trouble, and additionally, they also face the hardships of love.
To really get a feel of the characters from an Hrebejk movie, you need to visit Czech Republic once, walk around unnoticed on the houseboats and give the people around a pleasing smile. In case you are feeling rich, check out some ‘club’ and gamble. The movie does not give you an out-and-out laughter ride but will surely tickle your laughter bone every now and then.
