Review: Czech comedy "6 Grams" starring Vetchý and Mádl falls flat on script

A new Czech comedy, "6 Grams," directed by Miroslav Ondruš and starring Ondřej Vetchý, Jiří Mádl, David Novotný, Martin Pechlát, Lenka Vlasáková and Klára Issová, is heading for Czech cinemas. Despite the star-studded cast, critics say the film is a weak effort that lacks any real dramatic structure.

At the premiere, the director himself compared his film to Jiří Havelka's "Owners" and to the work of Quentin Tarantino. But according to the review, that comparison turned out to be nothing more than wishful thinking — instead of well-developed characters and rising tension, viewers get a string of disconnected scenes that go nowhere.

A promising start with no follow-through

The plot begins promisingly enough: the headmistress of a prestigious grammar school (Lenka Vlasáková), played as a caricature of a devout Catholic, summons four fathers to the gym. A small bag containing six grams of white powder was found in their sons' rooms during a school ski trip, and the teachers immediately assumed it was cocaine.

From there, though, the reviewer says the film falls apart into a series of unconnected sketches with no real cause and effect. The fathers are given no character depth whatsoever: Ondřej Vetchý's role is essentially the same character he's been playing for two decades — a hot-tempered stickler for order who shouts at every opportunity. David Novotný's insurance-agent character spends the entire film pushing bad insurance deals on everyone, a joke that stops being funny after the second repetition, while Martin Pechlát's real-estate agent cares about nothing but his own reputation.

Weighty topics, no depth

Jiří Mádl's character, Šimon, looks so young that he's constantly mistaken for a student — another joke that quickly wears thin from repetition without any real payoff. Meanwhile, the script only skims the surface of genuinely dramatic subjects: Šimon fathered a son at 15 with his own teacher, his stepdaughter self-harms, and the PE teacher, played by Petr Uhlík, recently attempted suicide.

According to the review, these storylines are used purely for a one-off comic effect rather than to build character or deepen the drama. About halfway through, the cocaine plotline is essentially abandoned altogether in favour of an absurd crime subplot about disposing of a supposed body.

The film's biggest problem isn't the individual scenes but how they're stitched together, the review notes. It mixes the characters' foolish antics with weighty subjects like mental illness and social inequality without any consistent stylistic logic, and the performances themselves are uneven — some characters behave almost like caricatures, while others act with complete rationality.

At the premiere, director Miroslav Ondruš proudly noted that only eight months passed between the first pitch to producers and the start of filming. According to the reviewer, that fact goes a long way toward explaining the film's fundamental failure — it leans on recognisable faces and cheap jokes without punchlines, papering over a complete lack of dramatic craft. "6 Grams" is set to hit Czech cinemas in 2026.

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz