Warning: Stop reading if you haven’t seen the movie yet! Really, you should not read this before if you want to enjoy all the details of the movie!

Plot

Antonín Blaník runs for presidency. Initially, he is not very successful with his campaign but he starts using simple phrases and populist claims and collects sufficient number of signatures to apply for the elections. Unfortunately, his assistant is hijacked by unknown agents when he is about to deliver the application. Then we are presented with the real reason behind Blaník’s candidature. As a president he could make a gargantuan deal with Chinese – selling them the Czech state and keeping all the money. Because he cannot be the president himself he forces other candidates to sign a contract ensuring the Chinese deal regardless the potential winner. The only exception is the incumbent president who is not supposed to win the elections. Turnover comes when a ghost of Václav Havel persuades Blaník not to sell the Czech Republic – so Blaník has to support the current president Miloš Zeman. Later Blaník realizes that the state property is already sold – to Russians (by his fellow lobbyist Libor), he decides to “save” the Czech crown jewellery and escape from the Czech Republic. In the final scene, his patriotism overweights and he decides to stay.

Characters

Antonín Blaník

  • mastermind, lobbyist
  • conflict of greediness (financial interest) and patriotism (it looks a bit artificial)

Luboš “Žížala” Havránek

  • he does all the hard work
  • he defects and collaborates with Prague café
    • this is not much relevant later in the plot

Lenka “Lenka” Knytlová/Bartošová

  • she produces small useful ideas and keeps the “team” together
  • she needs to take care of her son

Libor

  • another lobbyist, Blaník’s “friend”
  • we never see him

President candidates

  • real characters that were cleverly integrated into the plot

Czech president

  • similar role to president candidates

Prague café

  • a strawman created by Miloš Zeman’s public speaker
    • represents the opposition to Miloš Zeman, often depicted as Prague artists
  • they behave like a sect praising Václav Havel
  • initially they oppose Blaník, later they somehow disappear

Václav Havel

  • a ghost that warns Blaník about his intentions
  • idol of Prague café

Chinese businessmen

Real deputies (MPs)

Blaník mother

Topics

  • satire
    • reenactments of scenes and deeds of Miloš Zeman
    • playing jokes on (real) presidential candidates
    • parodying the campaign
  • Czech patriotism
    • Czech flags (actually abolished road advertisements), crown jewellery, Prague sights
  • comedy
  • fashion
    • nurturing a pair of iguanas in order to make a pair of shoes from them
  • Russia/China as buyers of Czech state property
    • funnily enough the movie itself presents product placement of large Chinese cellphone manufacturer
  • Lumpenkavárna (Prague café)
    • despite Blaník rejects its existence it is shown to exist in the movie
    • thus the movie itself strengthens the idea that it attempts to deny
  • readiness
    • it reflects actual results of the elections (the movie premiered ~month after those events)
  • real politicians playing themselves
    • they have free(?) PR
    • make the movie authentic

Comment

The plot is not complex it is a rather a sequence of several independent subplots that are bound together by the presidential elections. The movie is critical of Miloš Zeman and (ironically) attempts to conceive the message of Czech pride and patriotism (sadly, shrewdness and intricacies of Tonda Blaník (which made the character popular) are subjugated to this).