MIKI

Jakub Kroner's 2024 Slovak film is set in the post-communist nineties. Miki, who worked in the woods, starts with small business; in a period when the state was disintegrating and the rules unclear he rises fast and comes to head the country's largest criminal organisation. The subject is filling a vacuum. Miki shows no particular talent; he simply takes the spaces nobody claims. The narrative shows the rise not as personal achievement but as a direct result of the period. Milan Ondrik leads. The production gives weight to period design; the cars, clothes and locations show nineties Slovakia in detail. The narrative follows the template of the genre and the violence is explicit. Who it's for: those who like Eastern European crime films and narratives of the transition. Who it's not for: viewers uncomfortable with graphic violence; the film shows executions and torture directly.