It all starts with someone finding the body of a young girl on a Tricity beach. She has no clothes and, what’s worse, someone cut off her lips – the coroner present at the scene quickly recognizes the victim. The case is being handled by a new prosecutor in the city, Leopold Bilski. Jakub Gierszał plays this role, to my sincere surprise – usually such law enforcement officers are played by more experienced colleagues. Does it bother you that the actor is quite young for such a role? Not at all, because as I already found out, his character is significantly different from the original book.
“Colors of Evil: Red”. A new sheriff is coming to town
In the film, Bilski may not be very effusive, but he is an observant, decisive and exceptionally committed man, which he analyzes scrupulously, ignoring the orders of his superior. He’s the type who cares about finding the real culprit, so when something doesn’t feel right, he persists regardless of the consequences. He is not interested in simple and convenient solutions if he feels that something is wrong. What Gierszał is doing here even reminded me a bit of the character of Andrzej Koenig from the Polish eastern film “Law and Fist”.
Interestingly, Bilski is not the type of hungover alcoholic who fights his own demons, as is usually the case in the genre. Here we know that he has a failed relationship and is a loving father away from his child – so much for his difficult past. His description on paper seems terribly sanctimonious, and yet Gierszał leads the hero in such a way that you feel sympathy for him. If for a moment the prosecutor seems sloppy, it’s more of a form of mimicry, he simply doesn’t let us know that he sees and knows more than others think.
The case of the girl found on the beach requires him to have good knowledge of the local balance of power, because over time it turns out that there are elements connecting her with a brutal crime from 15 years ago, a suspicious club and the local underworld (yes, there are many references to, e.g. Iwona’s case Wieczorek or the affairs of Zatoka Sztuki). Meanwhile, Bilski is new in town and has to learn a lot quickly, and also be aware when someone is telling him an obvious lie.
Director Adrian Panek also wrote the script, so as the plot develops, he adds new elements of the puzzle: we learn more about the victim (she was played fantastically by the great actress Zofia Jastrzębska), her strange relationship with her parents, her even stranger romantic and friendly life, and beyond with this, we delve into the realities of the local gangster, discover who is involved in law enforcement, etc. It’s a tailor-made puzzle, although sometimes I had the impression that some of them were thrown in for fun, and others were forgotten to be taken out of the box. Taught by experience, I watched carefully, paying attention to various details, because these are very important in crime stories – there are plenty of genre patterns, but it didn’t particularly hurt me because I watched for the actors.
In some way, the way of presenting subsequent information and threads seems quite sparse, but despite everything, the narrative held my attention. This is certainly due to the great cast: Maja Ostaszewska plays the victim’s mother, and a judge, and is traditionally excellent in her role. He also has good chemistry with Gierszał, they are pleasant to watch together. Przemysław Bluszcz is a wonderfully disgusting and terrible boss, Andrzej Zieliński is also a class in his own right, and you can never have enough of Zofia Jastrzębska. As a result, we get a quite solidly produced and well-acted crime story. It’s just OK at worst. Without knowing the book, I am of course not sure to what extent the director potentially desecrated the original, but I would be happy to watch the film adaptations of the next parts of “The Color of Evil”. Perhaps a better idea would be a series of each book, but maybe the first film is to test the ground and test interest in the series? I would only have one request, to choose a different soundtrack, because this one didn’t suit me. Despite some shortcomings, I predict that the film may become one of the most watched on the platform, maybe even not only in Poland. “Czerwień” on the website from May 29.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
