Mission London (2010)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Let's be realistic.

Absolutely Fantastic

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

As a short introduction, I would like to mention that this is the first time I write a review on this board. I felt obliged to do it for 2 reasons: 1. I'm Bulgarian and I've waited a long time to see a quality Bulgarian movie; 2. Most Bulgarians giving the reviews give a biased judgment, including (but not limited to) the clichés "OMFG, this was the best movie evAr!" ,"Better than Hollywood crap", "Perfect", etc.. But since I'm a fan of (global) cinema I gave it my best to write an objective review.After watching the movie for around 30 minutes, you will start getting the feeling that this is another Guy Ritchie production. And this is actually the movie's strongest and weakest point. Strong - because you have good directing, quality camera work, interesting characters and a few interweaving subplots. And bad - because the settings and scenery are dull (you almost have no idea that this is actually taking place in London), the comedy element is almost missing (despite the movie being announced as comedy) and some of the subplots are really...lets say strange (e.g. the ducks subplot). The latter was for me the biggest flaw. In comparison, movies like "Snatch" have numerous subplots and characters that constantly cross each other's path and even though some of them are really absurd you never get the feeling that they are out of place. In Mission London, however, the best effect that some of the subplots achieve is to confuse you.But even with all the negatives, I think this movie did excellent job of showing that Bulgarian studios are capable of producing quality product. This was a great first attempt and I'm looking forward to the next ones. 7 out of 10

I'm not a Bulgarian, but I absolutely loved this movie (well, in the beginning it seemed a bit vague, but soon the jokes began to fall out of the closet), probably because I'm from the same region and sharing similar history, therefore I have recognized many of the cultural clichés used in the movie. I loved the character of the President's wife, as well as the ambassadors. Well casted and brilliantly written. Loved the worried British ornithologist part. These scenes beautifully infiltrated some of the English clichés - as we, Eastern Europeans see them - into the movie. Overall I am really happy that Bulgarians could produce such a movie. Never could have happened in Lithuania - we are too serious. It's very brave and it's a talent to be able to laugh from yourself.

This is the first Bulgarian movie that has done everything professionally - the producing, the marketing and advertising, the vision and sound of the film etc. The commercial success of Mission London is of great importance because if there is profit - more companies will be attracted to invest in Bulgarian cinema. Therefore I really hope the movie gets a good revenue and for now it seems like it would succeed in this mission due to the record breaking audience that it attracted during it's first week. Thanks to a very good advertising campaign and extensive media coverage everybody in Bulgaria is talking about Mission London.So everything involving the organization and the promoting of the movie was executed fantastically. However the movie itself in my opinion fails to live up to the expectations set by the trailers. Some of the acting is poor due to the casting. The screenplay is too chaotic and the directing only amplifies this feeling. In a few words I could describe Mission London as a mediocre attempt at reinterpretating Guy Ritchie's modern British style cinema of the previous decade (Snatch, Lock stock and two smoking barrels) and mixing it with some typical Bulgarian absurdness. Sadly though the result is neither as intense, complicated and funny as Ritchie's nor is it thoroughly exploring the absurd Bulgarian characters and modern politics. It's a movie that tried to imitate and be original at the same time and unfortunately it didn't succeed at both. Another problem is that Guy Ritchie's style has passed it's time and is already too exploited and Mission London doesn't bring anything new to it. On the contrary the director even picked Alan Ford to play a similar character as he did in Snatch.In the end I would like to say that i'm hoping Bulgarian cinema will attract more sponsors and the producers will try to make movies at a bigger scale. Mission London is the first bold attempt and it's a good start. For those who are really interested in modern Bulgarian cinema I really want to recommend them watching "Zift", "The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner" or "Eastern Plays"! New films from young directors that really impress and show that there is a lot of talent here that just needs to be given the chance to work. Because even though the three movies I mentioned were done with very low budgets the results are really fascinating!

For years, I've heard Bulgarian audiences wonder why we cannot produce a movie that holds up when compared to Hollywood comedies. Well, now we have. And the result is pretty satisfying. The first thing that struck me about the movie was how professionally it was made. The camera-work, the editing, the sound mixing, everything was of a pretty high standard, which is not something that Bulgarian films have recently managed. The acting was generally mediocre and the dialogue was sloppy at times, but overall all scenes were watchable, even the more talky ones. The focus of the movie was not in the performances anyway. The tempo was brilliant. At one point I thought the scenes were too short and the film would lack cohesiveness, but by the ending this style of editing makes sense and the film plays great, seeming neither too short, nor too long. While this is predominantly a comedy, deeper themes are there and they are examined in a non-intrusive way even if they are mainly Bulgarian-specific. Being able to understand all the jokes will enhance the viewing immensely but that does not mean that foreign audiences will not appreciate the film. Overall I give it 8/10 simply because the movie is head and shoulders above any Bulgarian comedy that has been attempted in the last decades. For non-Bulgarian audiences the film is a solid 7.