Droneman (movie)
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
Plech is a film professional and looks for a drone operator. He gets in touch with former schoolmate – the droneman and they start doing business, among clients is also a presidental candidate. That opens new possibilities for droneman’s private investigation of war crimes by Bush administrative. It turns out the candidate isn’t so good, so the filming pair splits and the droneman continues with his investigation only. In the end, he attempts assasination of a related politician.
Characters
Droneman (Pavel)
- 30 years old, unemployed, earns money by recharging kick-scooters
- works on a case against Bush administrative
- idealistic, naïve, also bit “autistic”
- turns into radical
Cameraman (Plech)
- drone cameraman for hire, he needs a navigator (the droneman)
- anarchistic rapper in free time, pragmatic businessman otherwise
- appearance inspired by real rapper
President candidate
- lawyer, populist (promises quick justice for everyone)
- he was a judge in 70s and he runs for presidency in 20s
Candidate’s assistant
- similar age as the droneman, runs the candidate’s team
- perhaps also naïve, seeks sane partner
- repelled by the Bush case
Russian interpreter
- older than the droneman
- helps him with his case
Relatives of droneman
- sister
- eight years older sister, she has a nice flat and no children
- cousin
- lives off-grid
- former anarchy activist, settled
Michael Barnes?
- American lawyer
- collected documents for the Bush case
Topics
- justice warrior, moon-shooting
- similar to other work of Petr Zelenka
- continental vs anglo-saxon law
- full-time vs hobby activism (and moral)
- happening, terrorism
- ignoring news
- references
- IMF 2000 Prague
- Ztohoven
- Slovak hitmen
- crowdfunded assasination of president
- voting by spending money
- ineffectiveness of security checks (interpreters)
- some Russian poet/singer
- effective altruism – the biggest help is sending money to specialized party
- women without children
Other
- blow up joke
- pepper spray joke
- exteriors
- Karlín, Žižkov, Holešovice and Malá Strana
- also an Israeli street
Comment
I’m used to multiple parallel plot lines in the work of Zelenka. Droneman was relatively simple in terms of the plot (classic composition), however, it was more difficult to untangle the characters, what is their motivation, what is their purpose. Some story elements were based on real events/persons and composed into a coherent story, which is what I like in and I expect from Zelenka movies.