"Bogowie" tells the story of surgeon Religa and his fight to get a hospital where he can do heart transplants going, all in the background of Communist and Catholic Poland, forces that will, in different ways, oppose his desires."Bogowie" follows the rule-book in explaining the story of a person advanced to their time, that has to fight against some preconceptions, in this case, beliefs that the hearts have feelings and that people will change personalities if they receive a heart transplant. In that respect, it doesn't stray away from hundreds of other movies that tell similar stories. The plot is not very original, and the direction, quite flat, doesn't help much. When it tries to get flashy it comes out as messy, which doesn't help. The acting is better, but the actors don't have a lot to work with, as the movie is very stern and it's basically men smoking and shouting and being angry the whole time.In the end, "Bogowie" ends up being not very original or engaging. A nice failure, but a failure nonetheless.

This Polish movie was excellent!! I had no clue Dr Religa was behind the famous National Geographic photo that you see at the end, of the exhausted surgeon in the OR after 23 hours of surgery with the assistant sleeping in a corner. I had to read subtitles, but it's not an action film so i didn't care. This biopic of one of the first cardiac surgeon to perform a heart transplant and his fight against the communist, Kafkaesque bureaucracy to open his clinic was truly epic and riveting from start to finish. I hope it'll be presented at the Oscars next year for foreign film or at least the Golden Globes, because really it was no less interesting than The Imitation Game or The Theory of Everything, both of which were also biopic masterpieces. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

I did not expect much from the movie and only decided to watch it out of respect to Zbigniew Religa. The only drawback is footage from real surgeries on open heart, and this may be too graphic for some viewers to stomach. The viewer will find it hard to observe the action from the back seat as the whole plot evolves like Bolero by Ravel. It starts rather slow, in casual manner, just to turn up a notch every once a while. The production crew faced quite a challenge since most viewers knew what happened in real life, and what the final outcome was. In this respect the challenge was met with a great performance, especially by the main character. Just like in Bolero the movie ends with a high note, leaving the audience in awe.

I was waiting for a good Polish movie for a very long time. They were serving us lots of crap for the last few years.I would recommend this movie to any adult in the world. It should be easy to translate, because the value of life is known to any human on the planet. Moreover the fight to keep people alive is very immersive and you feel like you are standing next to a real doctor, watching his hands. It is moving, quite dramatic on moments yet filled with jokes so you are not kept tense for the whole time. The mix of victories and failures make it very realistic. All the setting, exteriors, interiors, clothes, furniture, cars are period correct. Everything looks exactly as it should except some music tracks are ahead of it's time, but they fill the theme quite OK. I hope we can finally see the rebirth of Polish cinematography and more movies as good as this one.Great acting. Great uniform theme of the 80's in Poland. The best doctor movie I have seen in my life.