49
Metascore
7 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 70The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenThe Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenYoung director Marek Najbrt, commendably, is not interested in wringing easy tears from the European experience of World War II. In the handsome drama Protektor, he brings a cool, noirish slant to a story of Czech artists and intellectuals as they accommodate and to a lesser extent resist the German occupiers.
- 60New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNew York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanThough it remains a little too enigmatic, Marek Najbrt's Holocaust drama is atmospheric enough to keep us edgy on its heroine's behalf.
- The strong central hour - full of beautifully assembled linking montages and a refreshingly offbeat sense of dramatic timing that could pass for comedy - makes up for a lot, marking Najbrt as a filmmaker to watch.
- 50Slant MagazineJoseph Jon LanthierSlant MagazineJoseph Jon LanthierEngendering an experience both visually slick and narratively sprawling, the apropos-of-nothing professionalism of Protektor often feels more like branding than filmmaking.
- 50Village VoiceVillage VoiceNajbrt gets the look and feel of noir fatalism down, but storytelling that alternates between roughshod and lethargic means the film doesn't hold together as much more than pretty fragments.
- 50The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisThe New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisDipping in and out of luminous black and white, Protektor has a distancing glamour that prevents the story from digging in. Burdened by a central relationship so lacking in passion that its fate becomes negligible, the film's narrative feels trivialized by jaunty musical fragments and repetitive cycling and rowing motifs that belabor Emil's metaphorical treadmill of appeasement.
- 40Time OutDavid FearTime OutDavid FearProtektor is simply another in a long line of diluted stories about life during wartime, one whose diminished returns only further trivialize a legacy of real-life horror.