Patryk Vega decided for a moment to move away from the stories he has been feeding his fans for years, i.e. brutal gangster versions of the world full of often misguided jokes and caricatured heroes. This time he approached the subject of human trafficking seriously. As a woman involved in this practice informs us in one of the scenes, 1.5 million children are sold each year, and 300 million people in the world are slaves. It is a thriving business on par with the arms trade and the drug business. The action of Small World begins when a four-year-old girl, Ola, is abducted from one of the border towns. The mother (Marieta Żukowska) quickly manages to establish that the Russians are behind the kidnapping and they will try to get the girl out of the country as soon as possible. The woman gets on the trail, is close to arresting them and recovering her daughter. Unfortunately, this plan is thwarted by an overzealous traffic officer, Robert (Piotr Adamczyk), who stops her for speeding and does not believe in the story about the kidnapping. And when it does, it's too late. Before their eyes, the van crosses the Polish-Russian border, where the jurisdiction of the Polish judiciary does not reach. This drama makes a policeman decide to join Interpol to use their contacts and set off in pursuit all over Europe. And it is not an easy path.
Small World takes place over the course of 14 years and takes place in several countries around the globe. In this way, the director tries to show us how extensive this business is. He knows no boundaries. Especially nowadays, when people can be bought and sold like cattle via the Internet. The world presented by Vega is disgusting, but also very real. In Loop or Botox it was hard to believe in some threads, and Small World is very realistic. The story is engaging from the very first minutes, and the viewer at some point even starts cheering for the main character, although he feels under the skin that the matter is lost in advance. Hope, however, dies last.
95% of the film was recorded in English. I must admit that Polish actors, led by Adamczyk, are doing very well. Their dialogues are not stiff, the accent slowly begins to disappear, which is to show the progress over the years in Robert, who had to become a polyglot in order to fulfill his mission. The actor performed the assigned task very well. Another surprise is Julia Wieniawa, who, unlike the Women of the Mafia, keeps her emotions in check and does not let herself get carried away excessively.
Small World is by far the most mature film by Vega - among all those he has served us in the last 10 years. Thus, the director proved that he can get out of his comfort zone and make a film on a serious topic, without escaping into unleavened humor. We also have one of the most interesting roles of Adamczyk in Polish cinema.
