Vinci

Polish caper pic "Vinci," in which thieves plot to purloin a Leonardo da Vinci painting, is no masterpiece, but it forges zippy, mainstream entertainment from by-the-numbers elements. Veteran crime and comedy helmer Juliusz Machulski ("Killer," "Superproduction") mixes a few gimmicks from Hollywood heisters like "The Score" and the new "Italian Job" with plenty of Polish-specific gags and references. Local B.O. figures this fall were pretty enough to hang on a wall, but international auds won't gaze with such rapt admiration.

Inveterate thief Cuma (Robert Wieckiewicz), on parole from prison, uses a once-in-a-lifetime chance to swipe the national treasure, Da Vinci's "Lady With an Ermine," for a wealthy collector. Cuma's former partner, Julian (Borys Szyc), isn't keen at first to help out -- given he's become a cop -- but finally does. Rest of the gang includes forgers Magda (Kamilla Baar) and Hagen (Jan Machulski), and a docile getaway driver (Lukasz Simlat) whose brain disorder prevents him from recognizing faces, which makes him incapable of betrayal. Pic gets bogged down with crime mechanics in the middle act, but the climax delivers.

Vinci is just the next movie of Julusz Machulski, polish director widely known (at least in Poland) as director of quite clever and good comedies and crime-comedies like "Vabank" or "Kiler" (which was best-selling polish comedy years ago), so the genre "Crime" what "Vinci" seems to be classified as is not fully correct. As usual from this director you should rather expect funny crime story type of movie and so "Vinci" is. However, I personally would not call "Vinci" the best movie Machulski ever made, but fortunately all his movies never were time wasters even they were not brilliant. The plot ain't very unique and as you have probably guessed, it's all about most famous painting of Leonardo Da Vinci, and while it's still crime-o-type movie, you may also expect some bad guys sniffing around the painting with thievery in mind. Good acting and funny dialogs are the bright side of this movie, however I'd expect a bit more complicated plot from Machulski. Hopefully you shouldn't get bored but rather enjoy watching this movie.