Motiv pro vraždu

Triple Czech crime. Rape, drugs, and petty crime. The very first story, Július Matula's Víkend, anticipating Smrt stopařek, gave an excellent opportunity to the debuting Zdena Studenková, who surprises us with the quality of her performance and charm at such a young age. Postránecký's criminalist is also good. Jiří Svoboda's second short story, Rukojmí, is fairly weak, with his first independent work having yet to appear. In the third short story, Tomáš Svoboda's Kapsář, the pleasing acting of Jana Brejchová and Petr Čepek is particularly impressive. (04.05.2010)

A very good triple feature - the only thing that spoiled my impression of it was the "masterful" deduction, thanks to which the law enforcers started to suspect the character of Ilya Prachař in the first story, and then the very last sentence in the final story (unfortunately, it is spoken by Josef Abrham). Otherwise, I had no reservations. The segment Víkend is a successful start, to which Petr Hapka's music adds an unexpectedly poetic touch. The second part of Rukojmí is unusually rough - Jiří Hálek as a panicking, dangerous drug addict is unparalleled and rages like a beast. The short story is filmed very briskly, and it’s action-packed and suspenseful. The final story has the strongest cast and looks like it too - the mesmerizingly sad Petr Čepek is deeply etched in my memory, whilst the finale brings tears to my eyes. Once again, excellent music by Hapek. (17.03.2013)

In English: Decently written and filmed detective stories for their time, but if we disregard the faces of Czech actors and compare it to today's global genre average, it's nothing special. The film remains in my memory mainly because of the acting performances of Prachař and Hálek. Overall impression 50%. (15.03.2008)