A decent sci-fi movie almost drowns in police procedural cliché in Restore Point (Bod Obnovy), a Czech movie owing something to Blade Runner – but then so much sci-fi does.
The year is 2041 and in a world of driverless cars, dizzy buildings and swooshy screen tech, cop Emma Trochinowska (Andrea Mohylová) is assigned to investigate the death of the head of research at the Restore Institute, a creepy megacorps whose USP is selling people another crack at life if theirs ends “unnaturally”. As long – and much of the plot hangs on this detail – as they have a recent back-up from which to restore.
The backup on standby is the way everyone lives in 2041. Strangely, neither the dead man, nor his wife, who died with him, had one ready to go at the moment they most needed it. Which is more than odd considering what he did for a living. Could the terrorist organisation the River of Life, who reject this techification of life, be behind this outrage? Or is it the Restore Institute itself that’s the guilty party here? One look at its head, the shifty Rohan (Karel Dobrý) and the answer would appear to be “duh”.
Emma is the ballsy, lone-wolf cop with a tragic past who, because this is a high profile case, is unwillingly thrust into an uneasy relationship with a cop from an outside agency, Agent Mansfeld (Václav Neuzil).
Of course she is. Emma is a cliché and so is the entire set-up of the movie. But this is all poker-faced plotting. Debut feature director Robert Hloz and fellow writers Tomislav Cecka and Zdenek Jecelin enjoy setting up this familiar scenario only to mess about with it later on. Particularly as the film enters its second half, and things start to turn on the philosophical implications of having a copy of yourself in case there’s trouble. Wouldn’t it make life worthless?
This movie is no big-budget job but Hloz and his techies do a fine job of world-building on a shoestring, even if things do get a bit over-familiarly Blade Runner at times, especially once Emma and David Kurlstat – the dead man somehow come back to life – head off into the badlands.
The character of Emma is something of a blank page, but Andrea Mohylová’s fiercely contained acting manages to suggest that this shouldn’t matter at all. This is Mohylová’s feature debut after a few TV shows and a career mostly spent in the theatre. She sets the tone for everyone else – Matej Hádek (Kurlstat), Neuzil, Dobrý and Milan Ondrík (as the terrorist who might or might not be behind the deaths) also play their characters as people who are tightly wound and focused on what’s to come, not what’s already happened. It really helps energise a drama that can get a touch static and quite talky.
And dark. There’s a noirish vibe, with cinematographer Filip Marek making this literally as well as figuratively a shadowy investigation. Jan Šléška’s dark, murmuring score adds to the sombre mood conjured by the increasingly impressive locations, especially once the action shifts from the city into the countryside.
Female-centric sci-fi movies are still fairly rare, and if that’s one of the joys of this one, so is the way it saves its best plot moves for late on. There is also some enjoyment to be had from looking at the set dressing in this supposedly 2041 world and wondering whether, for instance, that really is an old photographic enlarger posing as a hi-tech doo-dah.
This is an unconventional, thoughtful film sitting inside a fairly conventional one. I’m hoping Hloz and his co-writers have another sci-fi up their sleeves and will get to do it without the breaks on next time. Mohylová can star in it too. That would be good. It could be a franchise. Why not?
Restore Point aka Bod Obnovy – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2024
