Colors of Evil: Black is a Polish Netflix original that reinforces the idea that lightning doesn’t normally strike twice. The film acts as a sequel to 2024’s Colors of Evil: Red. The film, directed by Adrian Panek and written by Łukasz M. Maciejewski, is an adaptation of the second book in the Colors of Evil series, Czern (Black), by Polish author Małgorzata Oliwia Sobczak. Despite a great cast and Panek’s triumph with Colors of Evil: Red, Colors of Evil: Black ultimately is a fairly mediocre film.
The story takes place immediately following the events of Colors of Evil: Red. Leopold Bilski (Jakub Gierszał) has learned the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished and, as a reprimand for being bold enough to be right, has been exiled to the fictional town of Trulocz in the not-fictional Kashubian region of Poland. He’ll be working as a prosecutor in a town that is somewhat known for its poverty. In fact, the film desperately wants the audience to understand that Trulocz is a backwoods, poor town separated from true civilization.
To set up the story, Leopold discovers a seemingly mundane clerical error. Meanwhile, Julia (Marianna Zydek), a crime writer who grew up in Trulocz and has just returned home with her young son. At the town fair, she meets Leopold, but after going their separate ways, her son is kidnapped right under her nose. Bilski must now solve a missing-person case with odd similarities to the case that led to his “clerical error”.
Colors of Evil: Black sets the stakes high, but ultimately bites off more than it can chew.
What Colors of Evil: Black does well is set the stakes incredibly high. Bilski eventually realizes this goes far beyond simply finding a missing boy. There are layers upon layers of corruption and deceit at every turn, all the way up to the institutional level. The film tackles important themes such as loss, grief, trauma, and faith in the systems around us designed to protect us. Institutions like the church, the legal system, and even family come under scrutiny the more Bilski investigates.
The tone is very different from Colors of Evil: Red, which showed us a story with a clear villain. Colors of Evil: Black instead leaves the audience with the jaded view that maybe everybody sucks. Even Bilski, who remains determined to seek justice, comes off as incredibly pessimistic and begins acting out of egotistical hubris. It feels like his decisions are meant to elicit a sympathetic response from the audience, but they come across more as those of someone who simply doesn’t fully understand professional boundaries. After a particularly spectacular blunder, he remarks, “I’d sack me.”
Colors of Evil: Black attempts to be more of a whodunnit than its predecessor by leaving breadcrumbs of clues to follow as the story unfolds. The film starts out with some obvious red herrings that Stevie Wonder could see through, but in time, it becomes easier to trust that some of the information is probably going to be useful to the case. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really pan out that way. The film tries to convince audiences that it’s a mystery, but it plays out more like a procedural crime drama, not unlike a very long episode of Law and Order: SVU.
In its attempts to be a whodunnit, Colors of Evil: Black loses sight of what worked with its predecessor.
In the last 20 minutes of the film, new information and memories begin to come to light, reshaping the entire investigation. Anyone hoping to find the perp by following all the clues can safely put down their notepads, because no amount of following them will help. It’s incredibly frustrating that so much detail is given to what amounts to nothing more than dead ends.
To make matters worse, the film ends abruptly, with a final scene that is little more than a cliché: sitting inside a tent made of a movie trope. There is a moment much earlier in the film that signals the ending like a lighthouse. Still, the ending is so obvious that it comes off as insulting the audience’s intelligence.
Marianna Zydek was a phenomenal casting choice for Julia. Initially, she perfectly captures Julia’s apprehension and anxiety about coming back to Trulocz, and when her son goes missing, she convincingly puts on the act of a mother sick with worry and willing to go to extreme measures to find her son.
Gierszał may be a returning actor, but his portrayal of Leopold is so much more raw than the first time around. Bilski’s exile to Trulocz has taken a toll on him, and Gierszał plays that well. Every line he says has just a small bit of grit and regret on the edge of it. He acts with his whole body, showing resolve but also a face that has weathered the storm.
The cast does such an amazing job, but their fine performances can only do so much.
The problems with Colors of Evil: Black are not the fault of the actors. In fact, the cast is great. They perform well with the script they’re given. The story just never fully decides what it wants to be. Had it leaned it more into the procedural crime drama identity that its predecessor had, Colors of Evil: Black would be a fantastic film. Had the clues Bilski uncovers throughout the story actually mattered, it would be a perfectly acceptable crime mystery.
Most scenes lack music, which is fine because the ones that do would be better without it. The score is trying to be haunting, but it doesn’t really add anything to the story. In fact, the most successful moments of intense drama happen in dead silence. As the town’s corruption is unmasked and everyone is forced to sit in the reality of what’s happened around them for decades, scenes without an overbearing score truly capture the intensity better than the scenes where the score attempts to guide the audience.
Sequels are often the true test of a successful franchise. Unfortunately, as good as Colors of Evil: Red is, its successor doesn’t quite live up to its legacy. It’s frustrating because Colors of Evil: Black isn’t a terrible movie. In fact, it has all the makings of a truly remarkable film. It makes for the most disappointing kind of sequel because it keeps showing flashes of the great film it could have been, but it never commits to being that movie.
Colors of Evil: Black has some truly entertaining moments, and despite its less-than-perfect writing, the actors do well with what they’ve been given. Ultimately, though, Colors of Evil: Black falls flat.
Colors of Evil: Black is streaming now, exclusively on Netflix.
Colors of Evil: Black
5.5/10
TL;DR
Sequels are often the true test of a successful franchise. Unfortunately, as good as Colors of Evil: Red is, its successor doesn’t quite live up to its legacy.