Someone Else's America

Decent work, but most of this is very safe, tried and tested material.

Tom Conti and Miki Manojlovic both do a good job but they can pretty much sleepwalk through this movie, so little is required of them. I really expected Paskaljevic, who's done much better work both before and after this movie, to pick more challenging material then this familiar and overused "coming to America, starting new life, oh it's tough but we'll try to make it after all" stuff for his American debut.

At the end of the day, the only thing that stands out is Sergej Trifunovic in his first performance on film, playing Bajo's (Miki Manojlovic) older son. Him and Bajo get some memorable exchanges. I was so glad that they made Trifunovic's character to be unscrupulous and oily, who in spite of, or rather because of that turns out to be the only one who succeeds in the new country. In a lesser Hollywood movie, I'm sure that stubborn old Bajo would in the end be the one enjoying American good life and his unmoral son would be getting what's coming to him.