It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I finally watched this film when my students borough this from Poland. What's more, in a DeLuxe edition, with an additional DVD which contains film trailers, interviews and comments, video clips and scene-making shots. But then, about the film itself. Olaf Lubaszenko is not only an excellent actor, good both at comedy and drama, he is also a decent director. This is his fourth production and now a light-weight comedy, which is very good and breezy. The film tells about mainly three people - Max (played by Olaf himself), a bored, smart, poor University Professor of Philosophy; Ramzes (impeccably performed by great Cesare Pazura), a mafia leader, cool, strong, merciless bully; and Stella (played by irresistibly beautiful and exquisitely marvelous Agnieszka Wlodarczyk), his girlfriend and lover. The movie shows us very nicely done views of Warsaw, and we are reminded how splendid it is. The plot is a classical lover's triangle, when a man has an affair with a woman who is with another man. But what makes this work so great is a sparkling, blistering, volcanic humor. You will laugh all the time, admiring the hopelessly stupid gangsters and their wives, moody teachers and their hapless students, tricky romantic twists of plot and very funny ways-out. The film is not devoid of some very serious message - the heart-breaking poor state of the University, its poor teachers and ramshackle rooms leave you with a very heavy heart. The film cries out for some decent answer to one question: Why, oh why our professors live so badly? Another sad note is the plot line with Ramzes' invalid daughter whom he loves madly and is sorry for her traumatic reality. The hard question of her why she is in a wheelchair is the most touching moment of the film. Anyway, the gangster's movie here turns to a brilliant love-story, then to a bloody thriller and then to a superb comedy outcome. You will have to watch it all to see how Max get out of the tricky state he is in, how Ramzes overcomes his difficulties with other bandits and makes his dream come true, how smashingly beautiful Stella makes a very tough decision with whom to stay. Watch it but be warned - the film contains some very obscene Russian foul language which almost all the heroes use freely. It may sound too much for younger audience (and I surely mean Russian youth who may watch this film here in Russia). Apart from that, this is a tremendous work of Olaf and his team. Bravo!

I was sceptical at first, but then the characters became real - and many of them likeable. The philosopher and the gangster meet and each of them affects the life of the other. Unlikely as it seems, the plot is plausible. The wife of the gangster appears only occasionally for brief moments; such a good actress could have been given more field to display her talent.