Mr. Kobin Seeks Adventure: A strange, dusty trip to Prague

Should you watch this?

If you have a thing for old German cinema and don't mind a story that wanders off the path more than once, give this a shot. It’s perfect for a rainy Sunday when you want to watch something that feels like it was unearthed from a basement. If you need tight pacing or modern thrillers, you will probably hate it. It moves at its own speed, which is to say, it takes its sweet time.

Kobin is exactly the kind of guy you expect to see in a bank: stiff, bored, and clearly needing a shake-up. When he gets that inheritance, he doesn't just go on vacation. He ditches his wife like a hot potato and heads to Prague.

The transition from his grey office life to the streets of Prague is handled with this weird, sudden energy. It’s not smooth, but it works. It feels a bit like watching The Man Who Took a Chance, only with more suitcases and fewer clear motives.

The Prague mess

Once he lands, the movie forgets he’s a lawyer entirely. Suddenly, there’s an art patron who decides to check out early, and these two crooks show up looking to fleece our boy. The crooks are actually the best part of the movie. They aren't terrifying, just desperate and slightly annoying.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Mr. Kobin Seeks Adventure (1934) through its definitive frames.

There is this one shot in a hotel lobby where the lighting gets all dramatic, and you can see a smudge on the lens that stays there for, I don't know, maybe ten seconds. It’s charming in a 'nobody bothered to fix it' kind of way. 🎞️

• The dialogue is snappier than I expected.
• The coat rack in the hotel scene clearly falls over in the background, but they kept rolling.
• Kobin’s facial expressions when he realizes he’s being conned are priceless.

The middle of the film feels like it’s struggling to remember if it’s a comedy or a noir. It’s not quite either, honestly. It’s just kinda weird. Sometimes it reminds me of the pacing issues in Almost Married, where the plot takes a nap so the characters can walk around for a bit.

The ending doesn't really land a punch, but that’s okay. You aren't here for the resolution of the crime. You're here to watch a guy who clearly made the wrong life choices bumble through a foreign city. It’s strangely relatable.

If you like movies that feel like Frauen, Masken und Dämonen but with less masks and more lawyers, you’ll have a decent time. Just don't ask too many questions about why the police are so incredibly incompetent in this version of Prague. They clearly just wanted to let the crooks do their thing. 🤷‍♂️