The Polka King is the story about how the Polish Polka musician Jan Lewan unknowingly starts and illegal investment scheme and in an attempt to resolve it makes a series of dumbfounded choices that worsen his situation. Jan has two wishes, the first is to live of his music and the second is to bring joy to anyone who needs it. As he is still an upcoming musician he asks his fans to invest in him and uses the money to pay his band further his carrier. At first it goes well and he can pay his investors back but the government learns of his business and informs Jan that he is doing something illegal. Jan promises to clean up what he has done and realises that he is unable to meet the governments demand. As some of his investors wishes to invest more, Jan seizes the opportunity and uses the new investment to right his earlier wrongs. But the wrongs piles up and Jan seizes more dumbfounded opportunities to right them. It is a simple story about how a fool tries to act clever but ultimately fools himself.
As I understand, the story is based on true events and apparently someone thought that it would make a good movie. The story is boring and Jan deserves no further recognition than a footnote in the history of Ponzi schemes. The story needs conflict, tension, likeable characters, a good protagonist and it has no plot. It would have worked better if the story was seen from one the investors and Jan was the villain.
I will give the movie one star out of five. Yes it is American history, of some sort, but it is not important history nor has it any emotional history. This movie is a classic example that not all stories needs to be told or filmatized. But to say just one positive point about the movie, it is that the music is refreshing. And the reason why it does not fall below one star is, that the camera work and clipping was fine. If it just had been a good story and script.
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