Review of City on the River

First of all, the great things about the movie:

• 3 lead actors did a good job, especially a male lead. Davis Suharevskis was great. His casting was a home run.
• Locations were perfect. Filmmakers were able to show beauty of Latvian/Latgalian nature.

And now not so great things:

• Movie was based on Gunars Janovskis novel of same name. Novel was very different in tone and ideas it wanted to tell. It was very down to earth, while movie was over the top, at one point turning into Quentin Tarantino movie. Viesturs Kairiss failed to tell someone else's story. However, thats only a problem if you have read the book, otherwise, you can still enjoy this movie as an completely different tale.
• Director chose to make this movie about Latgale, however, the book's events took place in Semigalian side of Jekabpils. Director also chose to make movie in Latgalian. It was his artistic right, however, a lot of actors couldn't speak Latgalian. It was very obvious and distracting. Gundars Abolins was a great example of actor struggling with speaking Latgalian. Director should have had all latgalian cast or should have thought of different approach to spoken language of the movie.
• Tone of the movie was inconsistent, as it shifted from comedy to drama without any indications of doing so. Especially towards the end of the movie.
• Some shots were out of focus. It was distracting at times.
• And the ending. Ending was just dumb. So dumb. I know it is nitpicking, but a boat couldn't make the trip it did. I don't mean the sea, but Daugava. It just couldn't get through hydroelectric station on river Daugava. Viesturs Kairiss added that nonsense ending, that was so disrespectful to source material.

Despite all, this movie is worth a watch, its far from being really bad. Especially, if you are not familiar with source material. However, if you have read the novel, then be prepared for something completely different.