Killer

Jerzy Kiler drives a taxi in Warsaw and stops to gawk at the street where a notorious gangster has just been shot. The police pick him up and, because of his surname, take him for the most wanted hitman in the country. He goes to prison, and is then broken out by a mob boss who genuinely needs a killer. Nobody thinks to ask him who he is. Juliusz Machulski sets it squarely in the Poland of the 1990s: new money, new gangsters, new police, all of them imitating one another. The comedy comes not from the misunderstanding but from the fact that nobody checks anything. Cezary Pazura leads, with Jerzy Stuhr and Malgorzata Kozuchowska in support. It opened on 17 October 1997, became a cult item in Poland, and produced a sequel in 1999. Its flaws: the dialogue leans on local slang, a share of the jokes evaporates in subtitles, and the last act turns into a repeated chase. Who it is for: fans of Polish comedy and 1990s satire. Who it is not for: viewers without the local context.