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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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I Served the King of England
70
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Class, The
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Waltz with Bashir
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Slumdog Millionaire
84
Christmas Tale, A
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
83
Trouble the Water
83
U2 3D
82
Tell No One
82
Rachel Getting Married
82
Let the Right One In
81
Wrestler, The
81
Silent Light
80
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
80
Secret of the Grain, The
80
Frost/Nixon
79
Wendy and Lucy
79
I've Loved You So Long
78
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
75
Pool, The
75
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
74
Of Time and the City
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
72
I Served the King of England
71
What Doesn't Kill You
70
Black Balloon, The
70
Hunger
70
Moscow, Belgium
70
I.O.U.S. A
69
Ashes of Time Redux
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
68
August Evening
68
Theater of War
67
Timecrimes
67
Synecdoche, New York
65
Just Another Love Story
64
Che
64
JCVD
64
Nothing But the Truth
64
Appaloosa
64
Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
63
Changeling
63
Eden
62
Duchess, The
61
Where God Left His Shoes
59
We Are Wizards
58
Adam Resurrected
58
Defiance
58
Reader, The
57
Special
57
Last Chance Harvey
56
Religulous
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
55
What Just Happened?
55
Cherry Blossoms
54
Battle in Seattle
54
Good Dick
53
RocknRolla
51
Breakfast with Scot
50
How About You
48
Yonkers Joe
46
Dukes, The
44
Chandni Chowk to China
43
Tru Loved
43
Gardens of the Night
43
Not Easily Broken
40
While She Was Out
40
Igor
40
Other End of the Line, The
39
Good
38
Dark Streets
36
My Name Is Bruce
34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
31
Hounddog
31
Let Them Chirp Awhile
30
Guitar, The
29
Lake City
28
Nobel Son
28
Fireproof
26
Filth and Wisdom
21
House of the Sleeping Beauties
xx
Dostana
xx
Cargo 200
xx
Local Color
xx
Donkey Punch
xx
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi
xx
Killshot
xx
Extreme Movie
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
I Served the King of England
Sony Pictures Classics
 |
|
MPAA RATING: R for sexual content and nudity
Starring
Marián Labuda,
Oldrich Kaiser,
Julia Jentsch,
Martin Huba,
and
Marian Labuda
Jan Dítě is short in height, but high in ambition. To put it bluntly, the young provincial waiter wants to become a millionaire. And he knows just how to do it: by hearing everything, seeing everything, and creating opportunities at every turn. Armed with this knowledge and an irrepressible wish to please, he soon leaves his first place of employment, a pub, for a luxury brothel and, finally moving onto an elegant Art Nouveau Prague restaurant. But by the late 1930s, things are changing: Hitler has taken the Sudetenland region and is breaking apart Czechoslovakia. Jan falls in love with Líza, a Sudeten German proud of her Aryan blood. They marry, and soon after Líza is sent to serve on the Polish front, while Jan remains behind to serve as a nurse in
a Nazi SS Research Hospital, but when she returns, she has a fortune in rare stamps that Jews had ‘left behind’ ... After Líza’s less than heroic death, Jan sells
the stamps and becomes ... a millionaire. But he only has three years to enjoy his fortune: the new Communist regime puts him behind bars for 15 years, one for each of his millions... Upon his release from jail, Jan is sent to live in a decrepit border town. Here Jan reflects on the events that have shaped his life – and to reflect on what might have happened if he had played a different role in these events. (Sony Classics)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
Romance
|
War
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Jirí Menzel
Bohumil Hrabal (novel)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Jirí Menzel
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
Theatrical: August 29, 2008
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
120 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
Alternative Title: Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
It's a giddy nightmare. Nothing is quite what it seems in I Served the King of England, and this is poetically appropriate. The world it depicts is too dangerous and too lovely to classify.
91
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
This is a dark story as well as a frothy one. But the bubble of absurdist self-absorption in which Menzel places this specimen of man-child is exquisite.
90
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
If this actually were 1968, the pipe-smoking sophisticates of "Esquire" and "Playboy" would be proclaiming I Served the King of England a nettlesome masterpiece. For whatever good it does this film today, I'll stick my pipe in my mug and agree.
90
The Hollywood Reporter
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.
90
Village Voice
Aaron Hillis
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.
83
The Onion (A.V. Club)
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.
80
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
A film as unique as this is a gift that shouldn't be ignored.
80
Variety
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.
80
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
The movie's main appeal is its special comic flavor -- a zesty fusion of picaresque adventure, absurdist whimsy and Chaplinesque grace.
75
Portland Oregonian
Stan Hall
In the end it's those amazing, nutty set pieces, coolly guided by the veteran director, that make it all worthwhile.
75
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle
It's a funny, even whimsical film about a man who survives tragic times, complete with Nazis, pratfalls and plenty of mugging.
75
New York Post
V.A. Musetto
Charming to the max.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Ruthe Stein
Viewers will be swept away by the beauty of individual moments and by Ivan Barnev's extraordinary performance.
75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
It's a film filled with wicked satire and sex both joyful and pitiful.
75
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
A charming, damning portrait that has been stinging audiences in the Czech Republic since its 2006 release. In any language, what the movie says about surviving fascism by rolling with it speaks loud and clear.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Delicious confection about the resilient Czech character, tastes like a bittersweet chocolate souffle, it's much more substantial than dessert.
70
The New Yorker
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.
70
The New York Times
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.
70
Time
Richard Schickel
May not be a totally riveting movie, but it is, in its gently insinuating way, a curiously rewarding one.
70
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
Menzel’s touch is sprightly, lyrical, mischievously understated.
63
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
The mordant wit and paradoxical melancholic bounce you find in a great many Eastern European filmmakers informs every joke and rosy sexual encounter in the work of Czech writer-director Jiri Menzel.
50
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
The deft physical comedy is a pleasure, though the leering chauvinism becomes more embarrassing as the movie progresses. Mel Brooks never had it this good.
50
Los Angeles Times
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.
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
Should be a brilliant picture, one last testament to the intertwined sensibilities of two brave artists. Should be, but isn't.
50
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
Pirouettes along a beguiling but treacherous line between horror and whimsy.
40
Austin Chronicle
Josh Rosenblatt
I Served the King of England, like its hero, is surrounded by and infused with the potential for meaning but feels like a lark: a bit of nothing whistling past the graveyard of 20th century European history without a thing to do but indulge itself.
 The average user rating for this movie is 8.7 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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