Peppered with profanity and dry humour, booming rap music and acerbic social observation, young Czech writer-director Adam Sedlák’s Banger delivers cartoonish good fun for most of its rapid-fire run-time. Shot entirely on an iPhone over 15 days, this propulsive comedy thriller boasts an agreeably lo-fi aesthetic and a jumpy, jittery, freewheeling rhythm. Zippy cut-aways to social media clips serve as recurring motifs, underscoring the jokes and reflecting the viewing habits both of the story’s youthful protagonists and likely target audience. The cast also features a host of guest cameos, from locally famous rappers to porn stars, visual artists and online influencers, which should play well with Czech viewers when the film opens domestically in September.
Sedlák already proved his confident grasp of elevated genre material with his sports-themed psycho-horror debut Domestique (2018), which won prizes and positive reviews at various film festivals before selling to Netflix. He has since worked on the hit Czech TV drama The Term – indeed, he initially conceived Banger as a small-screen series before rethinking and condensing it into a feature. World premiering this week at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, this locally focussed story has sufficiently universal humour and themes to potentially generate buzz internationally. Sedlák cites Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher trilogy and the Judd Apatow stoner comedy Superbad (2007) as key influences.
Banger takes place across a single eventful day in contemporary Prague. Alex (Adam Mišík) is a restless, resentful drug dealer with ambitions to leave crime behind for a rap music career. His audacious plan is to track down feted Czech rapper Sergei Barracuda (playing a version of himself here) ahead of his upcoming concert and persuade him to guest on a collaborative track, an infectious “banger” designed to boost Alex from zero to hero overnight. The only wrinkle in this otherwise flawless plot is that Alex’s musical partner, Láda (Marcel Bendig, hilariously deadpan), is a comically unreliable stoner who has massively exaggerated his insider connections to Barracuda. Meanwhile, the aspiring rap star’s strait-laced girlfriend (Anna Fialová) is losing patience with his hot temper and fruitless schemes, dropping strong hints that she is about to leave him.
These setbacks only make Alex increasingly desperate to prove himself a winner by scoring a break-out hit. When one of Barracuda’s minions dangles a possible collaboration in return for a hefty payment, Alex and Láda resort to extreme measures, ramping up their profits from dealing cocaine by recklessly cutting the powder with a range of other substances, from ketamine to hairspray. Relaxing their usual cautionary standards, the pair pinball around Prague, methodically selling their untested chemical compound to arrogant rich kids and snobby older bohemians.
After a frantic day of confrontation and chemical experimentation, Alex finally manages to secure an audience with Barracuda, who proves to be implausibly receptive and encouraging. But this potential big breakthrough is overshadowed by an agonising ethical dilemma when Alex realises the DIY drugs that he and Láda have sold to get here are proving dangerously toxic, possible even lethal. Torn between making a Faustian bargain with fame and doing the right thing, he wavers.
Behind its grungy surface aesthetic, Banger is a slickly assembled package, with excellent lead performances, punchy pacing and laugh-out-loud jokes. Sedlák couches a familiar plot in tongue-in-cheek attitude, presenting his cheerfully amoral protagonists as likable clowns, not tragic anti-heroes. The default tone here is heightened farce, not social realism. So when he dials down the irreverent humour in the final act with heavy-handed moralising about the dangers of drugs, the effect is jarring, almost like stumbling into a different film. This shift in register is not fatal, just a little clumsy and condescending, weakening an effortlessly enjoyable live-action Loony Tunes caper that has previously barely missed a beat.
Venue: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Special Screenings)
Cast: Adam Mišík, Marsell Bendig, Sergei Barracuda, Anna Fialová
Director, screenwriter: Adam Sedlák
Cinematography: Dušan Husár
Editing: Šimon Hájek, Jakub Jelínek
Music: Oliver Torr
Art director: Tomáš Bukácek
Producers: Jakub Jíra, Kryštof Zelenka
Production company: Shore Points (Czech)
World sales: Shore Points
In Czech
105 minutes
