Bet on Friendship / Prvok, Sampon, Tecka a Karel

In the story Bet on Friendship, four middle-aged friends admit that their lives are far from what they imagined. They decide to solve their crisis with provocative play and bold tasks. How does a man in his forties find out if he's a real man? How do they prevent the corrosion of their ideals, the fading of dreams and shrinking of testicles? Prvok, Sampon, Tecka and Karel try to find the courage to do some crazy stuff like when they were young. Or at least to be truthful and always say what they think. Who completes the task doesn't become a looser…

Director Patrik Hartl's film tells in a rather clever way a story of four friends in middle age crisis, and how they are trying to deal with this unwanted situation. They all had a life story with a fundamental problem. The actors got lost in their roles and so I really enjoyed it - I was most interested in Hynek Cermak, followed closely by Martin Pechlat. Although the film has a comedy genre in the profile, it offers a lot of dramatically tuned scenes in which the four friends deal with "adult" problems in a way of childish challenges. I didn't like the first challenge, but the rest was satisfactory enough. This dramatic-comedy construction of the film was very interesting and a little bit unexpected.

An extremely believable film with Czech acting performances and an unplanned story. Czech films and especially comedies have not been quite good in recent years. Fortunately, Bet on Friendship worked out well and it is a great spectacle! There are a total of ninety characters in the film, and director Patrik Hartl wished that even the smallest roles and those who only appear there for a few seconds, be portrayed by top actors.