Jack Strong

I find it hard to evaluate this film. On the one hand, I was completely satisfied, the atmosphere of Poland in the 70s and 80s was perfect. I instantly recognized General Jaruzelský and Brezhnev's voice sent chills down my spine (it was exactly as I remembered it). But then there was the character of Colonel Kukliński, and I wasn’t so pleased with the way he was portrayed. I didn’t appreciate the fact that this heroic colonel took part in the planning of Operation Danube in the film. Later, I googled some more facts, and I simply can’t give more than three stars. (10/30/2018)

How many times in the last ten years have the Poles convinced me with their films that their country hides a huge number of stories that definitely deserve attention on the big screen? Personally, I couldn't even count it on the fingers of three hands. So now I can say that Jack Strong is another of those successful topics that definitely deserve attention. A spy movie is something that can be quite complicated to explain. But here, everything in connection with the former Czechoslovakia makes sense, and I think that the Czech viewer will have no reason to be left out. It's a shame that the plot was mainly stirring at the end of the film. If I had personally seen a wow scene like in Spielberg's Bridge of Spies, I might not even have a problem comparing this film to the best spy movies I've ever seen. So, just "almost", which is still a captivating phenomenon in Polish cinema. (11/24/2021)

The Prague Spring as the proverbial last straw after which Polish Col. Kukliński lost all his illusions about the USSR and over the course of several years he smuggles thousands of pages of essential files from technical specification to operation plans to the West. The movie depiction of his fate is primarily a genre movie through and through, secondly it is a great tribute and thirdly it is an attempt at reconstruction of the events of the time, but it is hard to treat it negatively, since the tension throughout the movie could be cut by a knife; typically during a conversation about nothing where they play a game like this: “he knows that that guy knows, but this guy just has suspicions, while the other guy suspects nothing." Too bad that, despite its genre-related and production qualities, this Polish filmmaker didn’t try to avoid genre clichés. This movie contains maybe all the clichés that have ever appeared in a spy movie. Most of them are presented with grace and serve their purpose, but it’s still rather a shame. (07/22/2014)