One Hand Can't Clap

The third time's the charm. After the utterly shallow Loners and the empty bubble that was Whisper, Ondříček managed to hit the target satisfactorily. Simply because he has stopped playing at more than a panopticon of quaint, crazy and unrealistic characters. That he made a weird comedy that is not deep, which is basically about the brown non-fragrant one, but is excellently acted (Ivan Trojan's performance is flawless, more than flawless! and Jan Tříska is irresistibly perverted), and it is dynamically filmed, originally humorous and kind, crazy kind. True, Ondříček bet on everything tried that worked reliably before, but he embodied it in a film that doesn't come off as something that says something about our time... and perhaps that is why One Hand Can’t Clap has at least partial informative value. Just a little bit. Actually, it's just a collection of black humor. Quality black humor. And that's the point first and foremost. ***1/2 (15/06/2005)

After about twelve years, I rewatched the film so I could write a proper review. What amused me most was how disgustingly young everyone in it was. I remembered the film surprisingly well and enjoyed it again. And it was Tříska's Shakespearean scene again that was the most annoying, or even distracting. Fortunately, everything else worked for me. It was full of great one-liners, and I had fun just like all those years ago. (27/12/2017)

I guess I heard so much about this movie beforehand that I just had to be disappointed afterward. The Hitler scene is fine, the scene with the dog and the jam sounded more perverse from the description, but overall, there's a good absurd, grotesque humor here that I quite liked. Acting is often just about the guy making an ass of himself. (01/08/2017)

Gentlemen, sometimes locking yourselves in a cottage and mine ideas in a creative atmosphere is not enough. You worked hard, but you couldn't put it together in such a way as to make a coherent story. This film is in fact a sequence of more, but rather less effective scenes, with a somewhat dull plot in the background. Jokes and the brilliant Ivan “Adolf” Trojan do not make a good film. (03/10/2005)