One Hand Can't Clap

Standa gets out of prison believing things will come right now. Instead his luck gets considerably worse because of a man he has just met. The pair move from small swindles to big ideas and sink deeper each time. In Prague nobody seems to help anybody; everyone is chasing their own small account, and good intentions are the most expensive thing there is. David Ondříček's film carries the familiar tone of Czech black humour: disaster on top of disaster, with nobody making speeches about it. Jiří Macháček and Marek Taclík carry it between them, with Ivan Trojan also in the cast. The small-time criminal world of post-nineties Czechia is given here without heroism, as ordinary and slightly pitiful work.