Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Operation: Nation’ on Netflix, an Ineffective Antifascist Rom-Com from Poland

Operation: Nation, a.k.a. Kryptonim: Polska in its native Polish (now on Netflix), is an antifascist rom-com, which just might be two great tastes that taste great together. It’s the story of a nice-enough guy who’s not nice enough not to hang out with his cousin’s dumbass neo-Nazi posse, although his nice-enoughness might be dragged into the light by a lovely woman who just so happens to lean hard to the left. So let’s call it a sort-of-opposites-attract comedy spurned from the modern-day ideological rifts that are tearing societies apart – and hope it stirs up a laugh or three, right?

OPERATION: NATION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: They call themselves the Radical Youth Society, and they’re having a picnic in a remote wooded locale to celebrate Hitler’s birthday. Just as Roman (Boris Szyc) climbs atop a crate to deliver a heartfelt motivational speech proclaiming the inferiority of all people who aren’t white and Catholic, the cops bust up the shindig. Now I’ll pause for a moment to mull over how that’s kind of effed up from a freedom-of-speech standpoint, since even those with repulsive and immoral ideologies should have the right to assemble, lest ye slide down ye olde slippery slope (and here I pause again to note that Poland is notorious for dumb shit like anti-blasphemy laws). But then the movie shows Roman and his boys being let off the hook by a judge who asserts that their sieg-heiling could be interpreted in any number of ways, not just as a Nazi salute. And one effed-up thing is balanced out by another effed-up thing, so no harm no foul I guess? I dunno, but methinks the movie might be throwing a few jabs at unreasonable governance and disgusting ideologies.

Then we meet Staszek (Maciej Musialowski), who’s been in a personal tailspin since he blew out his knee and ended his hopes of being a soccer star. He’s 20, living with his parents, sharing a bedroom with his 15-year-old K-pop-obsessed sister, working in a parking-lot guard shack. But what’s truly emblematic of his wayward bottoming-out is the fact that he’s a half-assed quasi-member of the RYS. See, Roman is his cousin, and he lent Staszek a hand after his career-ending injury. Staszek feels indebted to him, so he shows a loyalty to Roman he absolutely doesn’t deserve. Roman is a small man with a big mouth and a cocaine addiction, and he hangs out with three idiot flunkies: Mieszko (Karol Kadlubiec), a red-suspenders-and-combat-boots skinhead; Mariusz (Karol Bernacki), a closeted gay man who doth protest too much; and Brajan (Mateusz Krol), a leadskulled dolt who makes Barney Fife look like Einstein. It’s quite the crew. 

Staszek hangs out with these fartknockers possibly because he has nothing else to do, possibly because he’s trying to find himself, possibly because he’s stupid, but most probably because all of the above is true. Roman and his peabrains hole up in the attic of a rectory and plot to bomb a synagogue, while Staszek watches, inexpressive; maybe he’s so blase about it because these guys are molecularly incompetent, and more likely to blow themselves up. Meanwhile, Staszek meets Pola (Magdalena Mascianica), a leftist graduate student who just broke up with her man-bunned hipster-douche boyfriend, and sparks fly. She doesn’t know he’s affiliated with the RYS, but he knows she’s diametrically opposed to their racist, elitist Weltanschauung. Will LOVE shake him from his apathetic stupor? Maybe, but I do feel like I’m sitting on an atomic bomb, waiting for it to go off.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Operation: Nation offers Jojo Rabbit-style lampoonery crossed with a lighthearted, generic rom-com version of Romeo and Juliet.

Performance Worth Watching: Szyc shows a bit of inspired buffoonery by summoning Vladimir Putin and Col. Clink and funneling their fascism through a bug-eyed Begbie-esque cokehead character.

Memorable Dialogue: Roman tries to inspire his toadies: “Gentlemen, I call for brain blitzkrieg!”

Sex and Skin: Just some making out.

Our Take: Warning: easy targets are everywhere. Operation: Nation pokes gently at granola-lefties and props up Staszek as a slacker-cypher who doesn’t seem to care much about anything unless someone might actually get hurt, but saves its comedic haymakers for the nationalist buffoons, whose grotesque antics are ripe for ridicule. The fish are in the barrel and the movie fires away in an almost genial manner – a manner that renders the satire dull and toothless, generating a few smirks but even fewer bona-fide laughs. 

The film fails on a few fronts: As a protagonist, Staszek is too bland to generate much empathy, and despite Mascianica’s spirited performance, Pola never registers as a fully formed character. Although it’s fun to point out the crass hypocrisy of far-right chuckleheads, the movie succumbs to hacky stereotypes of closeted gay men in the Mariusz character (��If our cause demands it, I’ll bend over. For Poland!”). It’s tonally off in scenes where Roman and his men randomly hassle and assault people of color out in public – the movie disregards such displays of traumatic cruelty with a shrug, apparently intending to further illustrate how the RYS is more incompetent than anything. And it doesn’t lean into the absurdity or seriousness of 21st-century political divisiveness, instead operating in a humdrum middle ground that makes the movie watchable, but not particularly engaging dramatically or comedically. Despite white nationalists threatening to blow up gays and Jews, the stakes always seem low in Operation: Nation, a gross discrepancy from reality that the movie isn’t satirically potent enough to overcome.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Operation: Nation’s intentions are muddled and its satire falls flat.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.