i have never enjoy movie making by a committee . karaula be a cinematic equivalent of those 1980s hammy pop folk rock whatever happen to be sell at the moment that be what we play bijelo dugme clone ( merlin and hari mata hari and valentino and plavi orkestar and divlje jagode and regina ) a populist and do not you dare go deep than the outer layer and watchable but ultimately quickly forgettable experience . it have identify a pretty wide group a it target audience and pander to it relentlessly in the most general sense possible . from the folksy screenplay full of snappy and and unfortunately often corny one liner right down to the halid beslic cameo and karaula play like a checklist of movie device and stock character that have go over well in the cinema ( s ) of former yugoslavia throughout the last two decade represent 1. goran bregovic music score . check . ( and also some sanja ilic add for good ethno mood measure . ) 2. adolescent men of different ( yugo ) slav nationality spout cheesy joke . check . ( in karaula theyre and of course and lead by a wise crackin belgrade bad boy and his constantly smile dalmatian tag along buddy all of which seem lift straight from that bolji zivot episode when boba ( dragan bjelogrlic ) go to the army and be entrust with form a multi ethnic band . ) 3. zany support character with a portmanteau like nickname and a weird hobby . check . ( enter botanically obsessed colonel rade orhideja who follow in the long line of mile rent a bubregs and bili piton . unfortunately he not nearly a funny or a memorable . accord to blogger and obviously bore out of their skull and the character of rade o. might have be inspire by ratko mladic who also serve in macedonia during the late 1980s and apparently also loved flower all of which i guess be the close this unremarkable film will come to generate any kind of post view discussion . ) 4. lot of crass and unrefined sex scene and use either for comic relief or a prelude to something tragic . check . ( bascially any number of yugoslav movie use both and but unfortunately unlike in and off the top of my head and ko to tamo peva or lepota poroka where sex be skilfully weave into the story and karaula use it for nothing more than cheap thrill . ) 5. an out of the blue prominent ( turbo ) folk star cameo . check . ( though karaula seem to be present halid beslic with an ironic distance and his appearance be essentially no different from tesna koza or zikina dinastija stop the plot for 2 minute so that brena and sneki and zorica brunclik or whomever can sing their little song . unlike karaula those movie be at least honest about be populist crap . ) in summary and i really have nothing apriori against usage of any of the above a movie device and but karaula simply miss the target on all of them and miss it badly . the one bright spot be emir hadzihafizbegovic in the role of st diseased lieutenant . trifunovic and the croatian kid aren not bad either and it just too bad both of their character be write so sketchily and incoherently . this be especially true of trifunovic ljuba who suddenly go from a friendly simpatico smart as to a rag sociopathic monster within like a day with absolutely no proper justification in the script or plot .