Pleasures of the Father of His Country

A good film in the not frequent line of historical narratives that understand that even the names in the textbooks were young people in their day. In the second plan, it is a natural counter-variation to Summer Spent with a Cowboy, or Hanzlík/Kolářová in an ideal interplay and being incredibly cute. The explanatory value of a critical pause on the realities of the 14th century would probably be questionable, but let us be glad for the gifts that we did get. (04/03/2009)

Slasti Otce vlasti is pleasant to watch, but only for a while, and that's mainly thanks to the actors and Klempíř's music. As far as the plot is concerned, it seemed to me that the film doesn't actually have a proper one and that Mr. Procházka and Mr. Steklý just happened to be composing various scenes for each other. The 100-minute runtime is almost murderous. (31/01/2015)

When I saw the film last, about 20 years ago, I remembered it was a nice comedy on medieval sets. This time, I was confronted with reality and I must say that time has really left its mark on the film. The positive aspect is definitely Kopecký's presence in the role of King John. Kopecký gave that character the boastfulness worthy of a great figure of a legendary warrior, knight, and adventurer of his era. It is also a positive aspect that the duo of Hanzlík+Kolářová has finally come together here, creating an excellently functioning relationship chemistry. In the 70s and 80s, they repeated their mutual collaboration in many other films and TV productions. Beyond that, there are only a few good jokes left to praise but unfortunately, there really are only a few of them. Among them, however, there is also plenty of rubbish. Diplomatically speaking, Šteklý's direction is weak and he really was no great director, having a lot of average period films to his credit. The film has a slow pace, the songs are clearly just filler, and some of the supporting roles are cast luckily and acted with little effort. In many scenes, you can notice the limited budget that the film crew had to work with. In no case does it stand up to the top of the genre - try comparing it, for example, with The Scoundrel and you will notice a huge qualitative difference. It also does not stand up to similar Czech productions like A Night at Karlstein. That film is much more entertaining and there are reruns on television much more frequently. Finally, within the so-called historical comedies genre, I do not address historical authenticity, but some of the film protagonists' lines really bothered me and I must say that Procházka chose a weaker moment in his work. Overall impression: 45%. (14/01/2013)