Karlovy Vary 2010: Robert Sedlácek’s Men in Rut

Robert Sedlácek‘s second feature is a comedy that tries to revive the old Czech spirit of Jiri Menzel‘s My Sweet Little Village. Men in Rut is set in an isolated village at the edge of the Czech Republic. Preparations are made for a special celebration and the Prime Minister may even visit this god forsaken place and the town’s people reaction is as expected: the quirky characters of the village are in frenzy. In the tradition of old Czech comedies, Sedlácek’s “Men in Rut” does deliver quite a few laughs, but it tends to suffer from some void moments in-between those comical portions making this a laugher with some rhythm problems. It may pass a lovely afternoon, but I don’t see this going very far in any other aspect.