The Hater

Director: Jan Komasa
Year Released: 2020
Rating: 2.0

After being booted out of law school for plagiarism, Tomasz (Maciej Musialowski) goes to work for a "public relations" (cough) company that specializes in smear tactics and targets a politician (Maciej Stuhr) in order to get revenge against his wealthy aunt and uncle who are involved with his campaign.  Komasa's film couldn't be more timely, with the political backstabbing, information stealing, use of current buzzwords ("elites," "radical left"), a lead that looks like accused Stanford rapist Brock Turner (who becomes more ghoulish the longer the film goes on) ... but his world is too black and white and completely unsubtle, like a giant sledgehammer to the temple.  The CGI aspects - where Tomasz communicates with a fringe radical in computer game format (echoing Anders Breivik) - are a distraction, but it does show the filmmaker is eager to throw in every single idea he's ever jotted down.  To put it in Polish: mniej znaczy wiÄ™cej.