YMMV / Boys Don't Cry (2000)

• Fountain of Memes: The script is so well liked that basically most of the movie scenes count, and, with the advent of the internet, several became actual meme formats. The memetic status goes so far, certain phrases have entered colloquial Polish.
• Love to Hate: Fred is a cutthroat, arrogant and incredibly cocky gangster. However, he is also perfectly capable of playing off various characters and parties (often against each other) and can always back up his claims or save his skin from a bad situation - so when he's playing rough, he means it and isn't just threatening or pretending. On top of all that, a lot of his antics come off as having Hidden Depths, rather than being a crude, money-obsessed tool. All while Cezary Pazura is giving one of the best performances in his career, with various nuances between scenes where Fred is playing tough and actually being so.
• Memetic Mutation: The characters of Fred and Bolec are walking memes, the former being a Know-Nothing Know-It-All Politically Incorrect Villain, and the latter a spoiled rich kid who wants to be a gangsta... while being white.
  • "Why, why? So they don't look like concrete block. A Polish gangster has no flair, he moves like a coal wagon. This sad cunt of a city could use some flair and finesse, am I right, nigga?" ^ExplanationBolec's Establishing Character Moment, painting him as a wannabe gangsta. His underling's response calls out the obvious lack of his N-Word Privileges.
    • "You have a pitbull that just happens to look like a dachshund. You're wobbling like a motherfucking rhesus. You're fawning over Mr Kunta-Kinte. You waste my friend's line of best Colombian powder. And finally, you show us a movie about a guy in a boat."^ExplanationHow Fred chews out Bolec for the complete fiasco of their deal, lampshading Bolec's every screw-up in that scene.
  • "I want the guy to tell his buddies in heaven that he got whacked by a man of class."^Explanation Fred, being the Sharp-Dressed Man, brags how his jacket alone cost him 1500 dollars while ridiculing Grucha's Homemade Sweater from Hell.
    • "And you wouldn't understand the story behind this sweater anyway."^ExplanationThe Dumb Muscle Grucha is repeatedly ridiculed by Fred because of his pink sweater with a pear patch sewn on the front. While the "story behind this sweater" is left unexplained to Fred, we know that it was gift from his girlfriend and the constant insults toward it are Grucha's Berserk Button.
  • Laska, the perpetually stoned Cloudcuckoolander friend of the protagonist, Kuba, is as much of a walking meme.
  • "You gotta ask yourself one very fucking important question: what do you like to do in life? And then, start doing it."^ExplanationThe most often quoted line from Laska's conversation with Kuba. The entire scene is a Fountain of Memes.
    • "I wanna be an ambassador, like Tony Halik. Just imagine how much stuff he smoked with all those tribes."^ExplanationLaska's answer to Kuba's question about "What job goes with smoking weed?", referring to explorer and TV personality Tony Halik.
    • "I'm the son of the Toilet King. That's a high bar to pass." ^ExplanationThe flashback to Laska's youth, with Leon Niemczyk as Laska's father hamming it up in a speech about the importance of toilets is a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment in itself. And then, it's capped with this punchline.
  • "Ain't no bunkers, but it's still fuckin' awesome."^ExplanationThe ending of Laska's stoned escapade that was supposed to save Kuba. Instead, he and his buddies drove all the way from Warsaw to an unspecified seaside location - about half a day of constant driving. The sheer absurdity of this line made it popular enough to serve as the title of an unrelated hip-hop song and a travelogue.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: The movie has a point-and-click adventure sequel, released in 2005. Despite the goofy cartoon art style, and much to the surprise of everyone, it turned out to be a perfectly fine game and even nowadays it is listed as one of the few really good games made in Poland, with solid puzzles and zero technical issues, while keeping the humour and flamboyance of the film. It also helps that Cezary Pazura (Fred) and Mirosław Zbrojewicz (Grucha) re-praised their roles. The positive reception goes so far, it is widely accepted that the script of the game could easily work as an actual film sequel without any issues.
• One-Scene Wonder: Siwy and young baldie, who ask for money in tenement looking for some "sharpie", accidentally rescuing Oskar from Grucha's assault on him.
• Signature Scene: Three, each of them reaching memetic status
  • The opening scene, where Fred and Grucha argue about animal species, meaning of life and french fries.
  • Kuba and Laska talking about what they want in life while smoking a joint on a balcony.
  • The ending, where Fred and Grucha have an argument about the latter's pink sweater. This one was even eventually used as a commercial.
• Take That!: The scene with wannabe gangster, Jarosław Keller, revealed as being really named "Psikuta", is a jab at the tendency of Polish filmmakers to give their action protagonists vaguely German-sounding names, a trend started with Franciszek "Franz" Maurer of the Pigs fame. Ironically, "Brenner" is also a German surname.
• Values Dissonance: Somewhat Lost in Translation, but gun violence in Poland is incredibly rare, even when it comes to organised crime. So Fred just casually grabbing a pistol and shooting the three delinquents trying to rob him in the opening is part of his Establishing Character Moment: he is so cock-sure, he's not afraid of the consequences of opening fire in public.

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