‘Hot Spot’ Review: Eighties Cyberpunk Kitsch Is the Future in Agnieszka Smoczynka’s Peculiar Post-Apocalyptic Vision

Andrzej Konopka and Noomi Rapace star in an alternately grim and kooky sci-fi from the gifted Polish director of 'The Lure,' with little functional story to furnish its alluring world-building.

By Guy Lodge

Guy Lodge

Film Critic

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In “Hot Spot,” the future of law enforcement looks somewhat different from what “RoboCop” predicted in 1987. With his bleach-blond, frizzy-permed mullet, giant hoop earrings, cuban-heeled Beatle boots and black-and-white lycra biker suit fitted to accentuate his every dadbod curve, police detective Djonny (Andrzej Konopka) instead appears to have been teleported directly from 1987 to the barren post-apocalyptic wasteland where Agnieszka Smoczynska’s bizarre sci-fi thriller unfolds. Comfortingly human in its bad taste, Djonny’s demented styling promises some degree of comedy to follow; instead, his sore-thumb appearance in this escalatingly bleak, inscrutable vision of humanity’s last gasp under AI rule is just one of several eccentric tonal conflicts presented to the audience.

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