The Sleepers

Until Prague starts looking like the ugliest place in the world, which is thoroughly infested with secret police, it's fine. Then the big spy game starts, which consumes itself. I don't mind the unprofessional approach and the piling up of unanswered questions, what bothers me are the B-movie shortcuts and the absence of empathy toward any character. I understand the underlying motives that fight against social memory loss, but by the end of the unfounded six hours, I really didn't care anymore. (01.12.2019)

A massive advertising campaign does not tempt if it offers inferior goods. This is an ambitious and costly project that effortlessly surpasses the overwhelming majority of Czech television productions. HBO's production has lived up to expectations, reviving the late 80s incredibly convincingly. The choice of locations, visual aspects, and music all contribute to creating an atmosphere of depression, squalor, and societal decay. The casting is outstanding and it is hard to criticize anything about the ensemble cast, and from the multitude of excellent performances, I dare to highlight Táňa Pauhofová in the lead role, Lenka Vlasáková as her worn-out sister, and Jan Vlasák as the manipulative STB veteran. I see certain weaknesses in the script, as the thriller adventure of Marie into the Soviet military base, where she - by chance - becomes a witness to the elimination of a weak link in the Soviet conspiracy, belongs to a qualitatively different part of television production. The series clearly overestimates the capabilities of the Soviet secret service in the autumn of '89, and the methods described in the script were typical of the 50s. At the end of the Soviet era, kidnappings, murders, and torture would have seemed like an elephant in a china shop. But it's nothing more than genre fiction and intended for an international audience. Overall impression: 80%. (25.11.2019)

So I’ve finished watching the most anticipated Czech series of 2019, and even though I’m not giving it all of five stars, I still enjoyed this series immensely. I’m aware that the HBO knew what it was doing here. The story features an elaborated spy plot, the problem of which, however, is that you must pay close attention to every second including the facial expressions of everyone who appear on the screen, otherwise you won’t be able to follow the story. That sometimes happened to me, when I missed why someone acted the way they did of why something happened. In terms of actors, however, it is the best-cast series of this year. I was very happy about David Nykl returning to the Czech Republic to play such an important character here. It’s hard to say which character is the most intriguing; they are almost all interesting and you always want to know what happened to them afterwards. However, as to me, I was impressed the most by the charisma of Jan Vlasák. I enjoyed The Sleepers from the beginning to the end, also thanks to the in places very inventive camera, which watches everything through the eye of an independent observer, but basically spies on everyone as only the State Security was capable of during the communist era. Thanks go to HBO for a great experience! (22.11.2019)