Dangerous Men (Niebezpieczni dzentelmeni)

POLAND UNDER AUSTRIAN OCCUPATION

THIS STORY COULD HAVE HAPPENED

BUT IT HADN'T

This is the place for some grand words

to get this story going.

But I haven't got any.

I thought I did,

but it seems that I don't.

At least none worth writing down.

TADEUSZ ŻELEŃSKI DOCTOR

Do you know that feeling

when you wake up after a party with your coat gone,

and your memory a blank,

at the door of the biggest wacko and dopehead in the country?

And three packs of other wackos have just sentenced you to death?

You know that feeling?

Until then, I didn't either.

DANGEROUS GENTLEMEN

Staszek! Stasiu!

- So, you came! - You won't believe this.

I'm in a mess, you have to help me!

I don't have to do anything!

Love, so gentle in his view

Should be so tyrannous And rough in proof

You, girl, yes, you girl So lovely you are

Witkiewicz...

Witkiewicz.

Tadziu! You're alive?

STANISŁAW WITKIEWICZ WITKACY ARTIST

Think so.

All's well then.

Pray, tell me...

What am I doing here?

You expect me to know?

You are you.

Where is my coat then?

Dear man, your coat, your problem.

Joseph, sir... Have you seen my coat?

"I finally saw Kurtz in the wilderness..."

Sir...

"I felt an aversion to beat this shadow, this wandering and tormented thing."

JOSEPH CONRAD WRITER

My coat...

"You are lost.

You are irrevocably lost."

Joseph...

- Bronek, have you seen my coat? - Alice!

BRONISŁAW MALINOWSKI ANTHROPOLOGIST

What Alice? You all drive me crazy!

- I have to go to the hospital! - You sick?

I'm on duty today!

That's why you want to go the hospital? Enjoy your hangover!

Who said I want to go there? It's a horrible place.

When I look at him...

When I look at you, and see how diligent you are,

how repulsively decent, such a busy bee,

sorrow wells up in me.

Good thing you can rise above it. Like a true artist.

It's balm to my soul.

Now, even if I had your coat, I wouldn't give it to you.

- Really? - Yes.

Interesting.

Where's my coat?

Focus!

Some people actually work, not just pretend to be inspired!

Idiot!

Bronek...

- Bronek, for whores' sake! - Yes?

Have you seen the expedition money?

It's in the tobacco drawer.

If it were there, I wouldn't be asking like a cunt!

Don't be overdramatic. Remember, you're bigger than this.

- Where's the money? - Where's my coat!

- Forty grand vanished. - You say I took it?

- You tell me. - We mustn't...

Shut it!

He only drops by when he's in shit. Żeleński's the first suspect.

I bet you snorted away that trip money.

I resent that! Not a trip but a research expedition!

Flip your pockets!

- Excuse me? - Flip them, Tadeusz.

Now.

- And you'll be in the clear. - Easy, boys.

If not Tadeusz, maybe this gentleman will know?

Get up!

Holy fuck!

- Looks somewhat like you. - Knock it off!

Anyone remembers anything?

Mr. Corpse not much, I suppose.

- Mr. Corpse! - How dare you laugh!

Don't be a wuss.

- Be quiet. - What's there to remember?

Can't you see a corpse on the floor?

- Who is this? - How did he die?

- Who killed him?! - One question at a time!

Right, Tadeusz!

- We need a methodology! - There he goes again!

A mystery!

Crime story material!

Gentlemen, let's focus.

How can we not remember this? There's a corpse here!

Maybe you tell us, quack.

You messed up a surgery, and now want to pin it on us.

Is there any brain left in that head of yours?

You call two bullets to the heart malpractice?

You've got a point.

We have a memory gap.

It's not about anything minor, but an issue that's hard to forget.

Considering the presence of the corpse.

Gentlemen...

Tadeusz is quite right.

How can none of us remember something so evident!?

We took peyote.

A hallucinogenic cactus that can cause memory loss.

- Staszek! - How could you?!

Me?

We've taken some hallucinogenic crap!

- That had to be your doing! - I have to agree with Tadeusz.

Peyote is as metapsychic drug. Works like no other.

Down the hatch!

Maybe I gave you the stuff, big deal.

That doesn't mean I'm responsible for this thing.

Question is, what are we to do with it?

When I was a sailor, we just threw guys like that overboard.

Good thinking! But it's quite a trip to the sea.

- How about a well? - Enough!

Do you even hear yourselves?

A man is dead. What if we killed him?

All the more reason to dump the corpse.

I'm so disappointed in you!

If one of us did this,

we should turn ourselves in to the gendarmerie!

Are you nuts? Żeleński, examine him.

If we did that, we should pay the price.

I wouldn't expect justice from the gendarmerie.

If it's like heath care in hospitals, then we're screwed.

- Open up! It's the gendarmerie! - You fucking asked for it.

I did not!

- You wanted the cops, so there. - Me?

- This is my last warning! - Open the door.

Why me?

- You're a doctor. - It's your house!

Look at me, should I do it?

I'm here on behalf of His Grace the Emperor Franz Joseph!

This is your last warning!

Open up!

And here are the authorities.

I feel safe already.

- Can I help you? - Yes.

And how?

I've been told Dr. Tadeusz Żeleński was here.

Not just was, still is.

- Dr. Żeleński is here? - Yes, he is.

- Where is he? - Right here.

Pleasure.

Dr. Żeleński was shot dead yesterday.

What do you know?

Dr. Żeleński could not have been shot dead

because I am Dr. Żeleński.

- You are Dr. Żeleński? - That's exactly right.

- Have you got any ID? - Of course I do.

I do, in my coat.

Where's the coat?

I haven't got it now.

So, you don't have an ID!

I don't but I do, it's just that...

Inside.

...I don't. Right, come inside!

- IDs, now! - Easy, we're just playing cards.

Sit!

- Wait... - One second...

Seems I lost again.

- IDs! - We're almost done.

- Show me! - Mine's in the coat...

One moment.

Hands up!

Hands up!

Jasiek, come on!

Stasiu!

We found him that way.

- He wasn't well since morning. - Against the wall!

Whenever we play, he collapses.

Dear sir, it's not what it looks like...

I've smelled something fishy from the start, and now I've got you!

You artsy scumbags!

You're under arrest!

My Zamoyski! Only two like it in the world!

- You prefer jail? - I do have the other one.

Now we have two stiffs to deal with.

Now, gentlemen,

we have to solve a mystery.

Or they'll hang us all for murder.

Someone else could have done it.

But because of that peyote no one remembers anything!

Every judge will think we're lying and that we're guilty.

What a mess.

Not the Zamoyski!

That was the last one! Thank you!

- You prefer to hang? - Just go to hell, won't you!

Gag him and cuff him to the stove.