Credits: screenplay: Marcin Wrona; director of photography: Paweł Flis; editor: Piotr Kmiecik; producer: Leszek Rybarczyk, Marek Rudnicki; production: Odeon Film Studio;

Country: Poland

Year: 2010

Running time: 86

Colour: Colour

Format: 35 mm

The overhead shots of modern Warsaw, sterile new buildings interspersed among the old, hint at something ominous. What that turns out to be is the collateral damage around the tight friendship between Janek and Michal, which began in small criminal gangs and grew while stationed together in the army. When Janek finally gets discharged, he heads to Michal’s lush apartment, where he already has a wife and baby and, he says, owns a lucrative window company and has gone legit. In fact, it is a ruse: most of the money he earns is blackmail money to the gang he had snitched on, and they are after him. This three-hander of a film is tense and intensely violent, but beautiful in a rough way. Wrona achieves a delicate balance.