Advokatas

A lot of unnecessary characters. Plot is messy, there is no growth of main characters. Plot goes too fast because of that their actions looks random, without meaning. All LGBTQ and refugees problems are just lightly mention, without showing deeper view. Really you can describe film's plot by this sentence: Sugar Daddy wants to have a boy from Syria...

A Gay/Queer film from Lithuania - a place I never imagined it could come from and it is superb. The two main actors who play the Lithuanian corporate lawyer and the Syrian refugee are both excellent, and their mutual knowledge of English (most of the film is in English) posed no problems for me. In fact, as a long part of the film is set in Belgrade, a sort of no-man's land for them, it seemed to me totally normal that sometimes they stumbled with a word or two. But now a brief and no spoilers account of the story. The lawyer seems a sort of snobbish, sexually arrogant gay man, leading his life almost uniquely among his gay friends. On a website he meets a Syrian man in Serbia. Leaving his comfortable and sometimes callous life, he goes to Belgrade in search of the man he met online. There in a St. Paul of Damascus way he 'finds' his human goodness and does everything in his power, despite obstacle after obstacle, to get the refugee to more understanding country. Eventually he does it his way, and the ending, improbable to some, was heartbreakingly beautiful. As a film it is finely made and each detail counts. If there were superfluous scenes I did not see them, and above all it is an eye opener in that it tackles a controversial subject bravely and I just hope it heralds more films from our Eastern European neighbours. A solid 10 for a very fine film.

I just watched Advokatas (The Lawyer) with English subtitles throughout. This is important as I would have had to have given up if solely the Lithuanian parts were subbed. The story was fine, but the actors were grim, mainly because they were not particularly fluent in English (90% of the film was in English) and it looked as if they had learnt their lines parrot fashion. There was very little expressiveness or emphasis where you would expect it. I'm not sure some of them knew exactly what the meaning of the words they were saying actually was, in particular the lady artist who was getting a divorce and who really was the pits.

There were a couple of sub-plots that I was not sure about. Why were they there? The trans angle and then the dropping of the court case and then the divorce. Digressions are fine, as long as they mesh somehow with the main theme.

The Syrian refugee expressed some overtly political views that were propaganda straight from the terrorist groups that attacked Syria. I found this distasteful, especially as he emphasised at one point that there were gay clubs and cafes in Syria before she was attacked, something I can testify to the truth of from my time there. There was tolerance and relative freedom, but he launched into a diatribe against President al Assad who'd presided over this liberal atmosphere. I found it very odd and not justified.

For the ending, you have to suspend your critical facilities. In real life their scam wouldn't have worked. However, in view of what had come before with the official agencies and the time constraints of "The Lawyer" to get back to his job, the film had to end somehow. At least this way brought a wry smile.

I honestly can't give this more than a four but have to say I watched all the way through and wasn't really bored at all. The main plot held my attention. It was just the dialogue and the way it was spoken that was the problem.

I watched this movie without knowing anything about it, picking it just because of my favorite actor on the poster. The opening scenes in this movie of friends having dinner were very enjoyable and promising, but sadly it got horribly worse from there. The script is very dull and too theatrical for a movie. I was also not impressed with kind of amature directing that made everything look/feel artificial. Most conversations end up with one character saying something and staring at the horizon and another walking away as if something dramatic of meaningful was said. Even when conversation takes place in a room, where there is no horizon and no reason or place to walk away. A use of red light in romantic scenes felt artificial because of trying to explain every time the "accidental" source of it (like neon commercials outside). These and other similar details left a feeling that you're watching a student made movie. This movie has everything to be great: good topic, wonderful cast, very well picked filming locations, superb musical score. But the script and directing make it a really really bad one.

I admit there's always some sort of cultural disconnect when watching a foreign movie, but something about this movie felt so wrong.

A lot of redundancy and incoherent characters only help worsen the story that already suffers from the writer plague of finding a solution to a problem that millions of people are struggling with. The dialogues are meant to go deep but just fall very short of achieving that purpose and instead sound unnatural and broken, and the director seems to have a very superficial approach to storytelling that highlights every other issue.

I'm sorry to say it felt like a drag at points where I had to skip some scenes, so overall, just a mediocre watching experience. Such a shame of wasted potential.