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Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Led by Nowak, the only member of the group with minimal English skills, four Polish contractors arrive in London to gut and refurbish a row house that belongs to their boss back in Warsaw. Heavily laden with tools and carrying only enough cash for materials, bare living expenses, and little entertainment, the four face separation from family and an often hostile English environment. However, the money earned will go a long way in Poland, and their boss will have a renovated London flat at a quarter the cost of using English labor.Written and directed by Polish playwright Jerzy Skolimowski, "Moonlighting" is a low key film that focuses on the interaction among the four isolated men, who live, work, and sleep in the flat. Nowak, Jeremy Irons in a quiet understated performance, is the only one to regularly venture outside to find food and building materials. Faced with dwindling funds, Nowak devises various methods to shoplift goods or outwit store managers and cleverly double his grocery purchases. While sheer luck often aids Nowak with his dodgy schemes, the English shopkeepers seem remarkably dim, and the immigration officer on arrival at Heathrow was unbelievably gullible.The story takes place in 1981, the year the film was shot, and, while Nowak struggles with finances and an approaching deadline, Poland stumbles into a military coup, and martial law is imposed. With phone lines cut between London and Warsaw and all flights to Poland canceled, Nowak must conceal the events unfolding at home from his compatriots to keep them focused on finishing the flat. Because three of the four principal actors have few lines and those only in Polish, the film concentrates on Irons, who ably carries the film. Although much of the action takes place inside the flat, Skolimowski's direction manages to avoid a claustrophobic feel. However, "Moonlighting's" leisurely pace does require patience. But Nowak's sharp wits and audacity, fueled by his determination to complete the assigned task despite the mounting odds, make for engrossing viewing. Skolimowski's "Moonlighting" is a small, overlooked film with many rewards for discerning viewers to discover.

Moonlighting is an outstanding Polish film which deserves to be listed among top 100 world cinema films.It is a film which shows us that there are some cruel,inhuman,unjust political systems and political establishments who constantly deprive common people of earning their respective livelihoods.Moonlighting demonstrates that human life is full of misery as it can make somebody do things which one would normally not do in daily life.This is the case of a Polish foreman Novak who is in London with three construction workers known to him. For them,their work site appears more of a prison as they cannot go out.Skolimowski is as critical of the plight of clandestine workers as that of Polish government's decision to declare Martial Law.It is sad to learn that according to moonlighting some workers had to work for 18 hours a day.Anxiety,apprehension and confusion are immediately palpable to these people who have landed in London for earning extra money.For example :an airport scene shows Polish workers to be entirely dependent on Novak as he is the only person who speaks English.Touching too are the scenes in which Novak pilfers from a neighborhood supermarket.A word about Sir Jeremy Irons.He is a joy to watch as nobody expected him to play the role of Nowak with amazing inventiveness.

One of the previous commentators tells us that Skolimowski wrote the script in one day; this shows. We do not hear any conversations between the workers who are heroes of the film ! We hear sometimes thoughts in the head of the main character. The martial law period in Poland was aimed at crushing the Solidarity movement. It succeeded - for some years. Compare this film with wonderful "The man of iron" directed by Andrzej Wajda who shows the birth of Solidarity. So much could have been done showing how Solidarity was crushed - only the director who is also the script writer had hardly a clue what to do. As another commentator points out, the workers are kept in the dark by their foreman. Seeing on TV the streets of Warsaw with tanks, do they really believe this is normal ? Particularly so since they left Poland when Solidarity was flourishing ... Jeremy Irons is a very good actor; one can presume he wanted to show to the world how Solidarity was crushed. Irons apparently assumed that Skolimowski originating from Poland knows what he is doing; a sad mistake. If you have sympathy for the Solidarity movement and its role in history - as many people around the world do - do not watch this film. You would be terribly disappointed.

Jerzy Skolimowski's "Moonlighting" is an outstanding achievement in many respects. Not only does it contain one of the most fulfilling performances that has ever been put to the screen, but it also serves as a political allegory, a smartly-told drama, and a unique exercise in creating suspense.On the surface, the story is rather simple: sometime in the early 80's, during the political turmoil that was occurring in Poland, a group of Polish workers emigrate to London to renovate an apartment for their boss. They have no working permits, so they have to do their job with as much secrecy as possible. When Novak (Jeremy Irons), their English-speaking foreman, discovers that military law has been declared in their homeland, he tries to keep it a secret until they are allowed back into the country.This may not seem like much of a story compared to most modern thrillers. There are no police out to get Novak and his men, nor are there any political opponents out to assassinate them. They are simply there to do their job, and Novak has to make sure they do it effectively and on time. Small but crucial subplots develop out of this: in order to feed himself and his men, Novak has to fake receipts for food (due to the limited amount of money they brought with them), and there are several scenes where he tries to get past the clerks at a grocery store with a Christmas turkey. He also has to buy them clothes and fulfill some of their material demands. On top of that, he also begins to develop fears and worries about his wife back home, including the suspicion that his boss may be having an affair with her. As the story progresses, Novak's money runs lower and his fear and paranoia grows stronger.Because he is the only one of them who can speak English, Novak is the only one who can communicate with the outside world. But he is also very manipulative, and serves as a symbol of a government that misled their people and kept them ignorant of many of their own problems. It is interesting to see how Skolimowski develops sympathy for poor Novak; for all his intelligence, he is still nothing more than a pawn in the hands of a corrupt government. He is a stranger in a strange land, lost and faking his knowledge of his whereabouts. It would have been difficult to make this film convincing had the lead role not been played to perfection, but Jeremy Irons does it with more grace and skill than any other actor possibly could. Much of his performance is spent in narration, subtly explaining his growing confusion and terror. There are several moments where he keeps a perfectly straight face while rambling on in his head about the grave situation he is in. His performance here holds its own in a year that also included Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie," Ben Kingsly in "Gandhi," Gerard Depardieu in "Danton," Paul Newman in "The Verdict," Jurgen Prochnow in "Das Boot," and Jack Lemmon in "Missing."Like Andrej Wajda (who made "Man of Marble" and "Danton"), Jerzy Skolimowski was an outspoken critic of Poland's communist regime. Curiously, he wrote the script in only a little over a day, and the whole production of the film took only a matter of months. Furthermore, the three Polish workers accompanying Novak in the story were actual Polish emigrants living (legally) in Skolimowski's home at the time military law was declared. "Moonlighting" won a well deserved screenplay award at Cannes and was nominated for the Palme d'Or.This film is on video, but I do not think it is still being circulated. I hope they re-release it on video or DVD someday.