JUSTICE. Unearthed from the depths of Polish cinema’s past

“”Justice””, unearthed from the depths of Polish cinema’s past, presents Olaf Lubaszenko, who looks and sounds almost as great as the master himself, Peter Falk, in the role of Lieutenant Columbo. It’s good that he’s back because our crime cinema was missing such a character—one that straddles the boundary of all things morally ambiguous in film, bridging the world of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL) with today’s supposedly better world. Available on Netflix, “Justice” by Michał Gazda attempts to reach the level of Scorsese’s films or Fincher’s dark crime dramas. Let me be clear right away—it didn’t succeed. If it weren’t for the duo of Olaf Lubaszenko and Jędrzej Hycnar, the narrative chaos in portraying a slightly time-shifted reconstruction of the 2001 Warsaw Kredyt Bank robbery would have made the film, at least for me, impossible to recommend. And after “Forgotten Love“, which blew me away, I was expecting truly GREAT cinema.

Unfortunately, no director has a magical recipe for producing hit after hit. A 5.5 is the highest rating I can give “Justice”, but that’s still not bad, and I don’t intend to dissuade anyone from watching it. It’s a good thing the film isn’t a faithful reconstruction of the 2001 robbery, not only because the action is shifted to the early ’90s, but also because many aspects concerning the perpetrators have been changed. However, the inspiration is clear, so let me warn you right away—it’s better not to read, for example, the Wikipedia entry about the Kredyt Bank robbery on Żelazna Street in Warsaw, as it will surely lessen the emotional impact. You can read it after the film to compare the extent of the changes, which are considerable, especially as the story nears its conclusion. The main character is Tadeusz Gadacz (Olaf Lubaszenko). Those who know a bit about the humanities will immediately recognize the resemblance in name, but I won’t spoil that for you. Besides, this cinematic policeman, a former UB (secret police) officer, knows a surprising (or perhaps not) amount about human nature. What’s most interesting about him is his ability to recognize not only the evil in people but also to strip away their masks to expose their rot. Gadacz is a master at this because he himself is rotten, corrupted by the previous regime, which the new system—supposedly free and humanitarian—does not want to fix, but instead seeks to exploit. People haven’t changed, even in those post-transformation times. They still snitch on each other, plot, and embezzle public money. They just have to do it more covertly now, pretending to hate the PRL, communists, and secret police officers. It’s almost impossible to maintain one’s humanity in this moral mess—a perfect subject for analysis by the Krakow philosopher Tadeusz Gadacz. Some people, however, must have their masks torn off and be condemned, like Kacper Surmiak (Jędrzej Hycnar), whose guilt is too obvious, inconsistent with the state’s new image after the political revolution. Yet no one looks for the source of his guilt. Either they don’t notice it, or they don’t care. Only Major Tadeusz Gadacz, the most corrupted and rotten of them all, seems to recognize it.

The two key players—Lubaszenko as the ex-secret policeman and Hycnar as the lost murderer, who believed too much in the idea of building a normal family after growing up in an orphanage—are the biggest assets of “Justice”. Well, maybe apart from the sugary-tragic ending with a puzzle piece, which was meant to squeeze a few tears from the audience, but had the opposite effect on me. Still, Lubaszenko and Hycnar save the entire film, which stumbles most in presenting the investigation. As for the music, I won’t even mention it—that’s a given. Polish cinema has long suffered from a lack of great compositions that could become timeless motifs. The supporting characters are quite artificial, starting with the uniformed head of the police, proudly reading data about the stolen taxi. Many subplots appear and then disappear without a trace (like the Swede). The prosecutor character (played by Magdalena Boczarska) could have been left out entirely. Mirosław Haniszewski as the minister with a victimized past would have been enough. Perhaps they should have considered shifting the action to the 21st century. It would have been easier to shoot with broader views, instead of some scenes looking so fake-dirty that they resemble theater sets. If my eyes didn’t deceive me, they didn’t manage to fully hide the modern PVC windows either.

I would call “Justice” a missed opportunity for a good crime film with a touch of exploitative action. The director was led astray by a strange formalism, applying the brakes in moments where he could have gone further. At the same time, the narrative style, in which the action is divided into days, disrupted emotions and caused confusion. That’s how I saw it as a viewer. Additionally, the screenwriter was let down by sententiousness, which sometimes sounded as simplistic as Paulo Coelho quotes. If not for Lubaszenko’s delivery, some of his lines would have sounded downright cheesy. And that sudden digression with Bareja’s “Miś” about eating? Mr. Sławek from “What Will You Do When You Catch Me” made an appearance too. You could say that “Justice” hit the target, but far from the center—just like the attempt to rob the bank by the three protagonists, who, upon opening the safe, realized there was little inside worth stealing. Or perhaps my expectations after “The Quack” were too high for Michał Gazda? Nonetheless, tackling Jerzy Hoffman’s legendary work and succeeding is a rare genius, so I can forgive the director’s small misstep with “Justice”. The thing that probably made the biggest impression on me was the metaphorical falcon, which, in those grim times, was given freedom by a man who realized he would never achieve it himself.