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I Served the King of England(Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále)

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Czech Republic, Slovakia · 2007
Rated R · 1h 55m
Director Jiří Menzel
Starring Ivan Barnev, Oldřich Kaiser, Julia Jentsch, Marián Labuda
Genre Comedy

Jan Dítě has been released from a Czech prison just before the end of his 15-year sentence. Settling in a town near the border, he occupies his time with rebuilding a deserted house and recalling his past.

Stream I Served the King of England

What are people saying?

What are critics saying?

90

Village Voice by

A mischievously hedonistic, Chaplinesque farce, the film buoyantly but seriously traverses the horrors of World War II with a subtlety and sophistication that most American comedies cannot grasp.

70

The New Yorker by David Denby

Menzel strings his sequences together with great affection and skill, but the movie, an absurdist picaresque, doesn't have much cumulative impact, and perhaps the hero is too much a lightweight to hold an epic together.

80

Variety by Eddie Cockrell

A virtual primer on the unique mixture of self-deprecating dark humor and personal tragedy that has been the Czech cinema's stock-in-trade since their celebrated 1960s New Wave.

50

Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas

The new film is so leisurely paced and overly long that what means to be at once charming yet darkly satirical lapses into tedium and barely comes alive.

90

The Hollywood Reporter by Ray Bennett

It is a sumptuously told tale of childlike wonder in the face of darkest corruption and war, mixing high comedy, surreal sequences and genuine drama viewed from a wise, jaundiced perspective.

70

Time by Richard Schickel

May not be a totally riveting movie, but it is, in its gently insinuating way, a curiously rewarding one.

83

The A.V. Club by Scott Tobias

I Served The King Of England views diabolical events from the sidelines, something like "The Remains Of The Day" reworked as an absurdist comedy.

70

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

The performance of Mr. Barnev, who has the poker face and agility of a silent clown, defines the style of a film whose timing and physical comedy look back to 1920s slapstick.

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