Completely original idea, but mediocre implementation The Ukrainian comedy Infoholic of 2017 that caught my eye gave me hope that I would get an easy entertaining comedy that would grace my evening. But unfortunately, not all of my hopes this film was able to justify.
The film tells us about Max. This young man is obsessed with information. He is like a sponge absorbs any news, because he does not know what he can use in life, so he reads all the news he can find (even if it is associated with a zoophile who decided to copulate with a sheep). And in part, that justifies itself. His passion to some extent helps him to move up the career ladder. As you can see, there is a downside to the coin. What helps him at work doesn’t help him much at home, because he doesn’t pay attention to his wife, who is also pregnant and unable to tell her husband what may be the most important news of his life.
This story, as you can see, did not surprise me much, because I often met him in various comedies. For example, “Bruce Almighty” or “Click: With a remote for life”. Therefore, I expected the next fantastic element, for everything that came before it could not entertain, for the situations shown were quite standard, and good jokes were catastrophically few. And to some extent, he made me happy. Max gained the ability to translate the news he had read into reality, thereby directly affecting his life. I loved it incredibly. Not only have I never seen this before, so the writers managed to present it very interestingly. You see, Max didn't want that ability. She's hurting him. After all, he reads all the news that he can, and among them there are often bad ones. And that bad thing happens to him, too. Of course, later he will learn to use the ability for his own benefit, but nevertheless, I want to praise the writers for the fact that they tried to diversify even in such an old plot.
And now, when I had already tasted this sweet honey, it turned out that there is tar in it after all. And a lot of it. The main problem is that the writers could not squeeze humor out of this excellent idea. Jokes are either too obvious (the main character read the news about pigeons and accordingly we see a white smelly substance on his shoulder), or they are simply unfunny. Even the fact that humor tried to make a little variety at the expense of vulgar humor, too, did not help much. He's not funny either. But it is not enough, and it does not cause disgust or annoyance, so thank you for that.
Besides, the fantastic element is also a bit strange implemented. In theory, the news read or heard should affect the life of the protagonist, but this does not always happen. For example, he heard the news about baldness, injured his friend. Or the news about homosexuals, but somehow it reflected on the son of his boss (I’m not even sure if he knew him, this character only glimpses in the film). Apparently, the writers decided that at this pace the main character will not live long and threw some of the negativity on his environment.
Acting jobs seemed a little weak to me. Although it is clear that they tried, but they failed to pull out their characters. For in this film, they are, as I usually call them, fixated on their own. For example, a friend of the main character is obsessed with his inventions and baldness, which was awarded by Max’s ability (and tries not to joke about it). The secretary at the company where the main character works wants to have a rich man. Max’s immediate boss wants to infuriate the main character as much as possible, because he is afraid that he will take his place (one of the most annoying characters, but apparently the creators themselves realized this, so he was quickly “leaked”, having previously very cruelly punished). There was great hope for two of Max’s colleagues, for they played him very often (but alas, then all their jokes began to boil down to the fact that they played a lot of “dancers”). And the friend of Max’s wife, because she seemed to me the most reasonable character in the film (although she also tries not to joke, but on the subject of her husbands). And I don’t really like characters like that, because even if they had funny jokes, chances are that if they repeat the same jokes a dozen times per movie, they’ll stop being funny. Fortunately, the main characters are not like that. Yes, the main character is also not very funny, but at least he tries to be more diverse. And his wife does not have to joke, her task is to move the plot and she copes with it.
But despite all my criticism, I can't turn my tongue to call this movie a bad one. Yes, it seems that the film has problems with humor, but a couple of jokes I still liked and I even had a little laugh. In terms of the technical side, the film also looks very good, despite the small budget of the film. It is obvious that the creators of Infoholik tried, but apparently the lack of experience did not allow them to remove a better product. In the end, it was just a mediocre film, albeit with good ideas. I would recommend it to those who love such stories or if you find a fantastic element in this film very interesting. For others, Infoholic is likely to disappoint.