Movie Review: Goran (2016)

May 4, 2018

Written by DanXIII

Daniel XIII; the result of an arcane ritual involving a King Diamond album, a box of Count Chocula, and a copy of Swank magazine, is a screenwriter, director, producer, actor, artist, and reviewer of fright flicks…Who hates ya baby?

Pity poor Goran (Franjo Dijak); all he wants to do is drink (a lot), drive his cab in the tiny isolated snow bound Croatian village he calls home, and hang out in a cabin with his BFF (Goran Bogdan) gettin’ his soak on…but unfortunately, his non-stop nag of a blind wife, Lina (Natasa Janjic) makes that increasingly difficult. Things carry on as usual until Lina announces she is pregnant, which goes over like a fart in a submarine for our hero, as he believes the child may not actually be his, but rather his sauna sittin’ pal mentioned previous. Well push comes to shove (literally) with disastrous results, and after a chemically enhanced Birthday party things get completely out of hand (read: incredibly violent and oh so very, very wrong)!
Goran plays out like a relationship/family drama for nearly forty out of it’s eighty two minutes of run time (with credits), but then things go so incredibly south so incredibly fast for the eponymous hero that the film dovetails into complete murderous insanity the likes of which will have you breathless trying to guess how this will all pan out…and speaking of our protagonist; Franjo Dijak plays Goran to perfection (though make no mistake, the rest of the cast is excellent as well…); he’s a bundle of twitching nerves hidden away within a sullen shell just waiting to explode, and he is electric to watch! Adding to the aesthetics of the piece, the film takes place in a cold grey and white landscape and dark times play out under a sombre steel-hued sky….its the perfect backdrop to this pitch black story, and even the surrounding mountains add to the encroaching isolation Goran feels as his world comes tumblin’ down around him.
As for negatives, well the film is subtitled, and the pace is a deliberate slow burn, so if you are illiterate or impatient this may not make for the best choice for your movie night…
Goran is simply put one hell of a suspenseful, unpredictable thriller with overtones of drama, horror, and revenge flick added skillfully to the mix…it’s a unique feature well worth you attention, and I recommend you slap your putrid peepers on it posthaste!
 

 

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