So, who is The Polka King? That would be Jan Lewan (Jack Black), a Polish immigrant who now resides in Pennsylvania with his wife Maria Lewna (Jenny Slate). Together, they run a trinket shop while Jan leads his own polka band, neither of which are financially fruitful endeavors. In order to get the money needed to help his band expand their presence, Jan begins to take up investments from local residents, mostly elderly ones, a practice that the federal government immediately steps into to put a stop to. Jan tells them he's done with the whole investment opportunity business, but in reality, he's only getting started.
Soon, Jan Lewan is building an empire built upon shady investments, one that can only be maintained by Lewan constantly commiting morally wrong acts. There's clearly a lot of possibilities for where one could take that premise that sounds like it came straight out of some kind of Fargo knock-off from the late 90's. As said earlier though, The Polka King never quite figures out how to tell the saga of Jan Lewan, choosing to just go for a chronological retelling of the events in Lewan's life where he benefited from fraudulent investments with a recurring presence of humor that's nowhere near as present in the story as one might think.
This lack of commitment in its storytelling means The Polka King is the type of motion picture that isn't quite as funny as it tries to be nor is as it is insightful as it could have been. Despite having the likes of Jack Black and Jenny Slate on hand, the jokes aren't all that humorous, with a number of attempts at humor, like Vanessa Bayer as a troublesome woman in a bear costume or especially Jason Schwartzman as a player a member of Lewan's band who carries on a romantic relationship with Lewan's mother-in-law, feeling more extraneous than funny. Despite one of The Polka King's two writers being Wallace Wolodarsky, the man who wrote Last Exit To Springfield, one of the all-time best episodes of The Simpsons, the jokes frequently just don't work here.
As for attempts at drama, there's really not that much there either, and that's a shame considering how director Maya Forbes did quite well at capturing a dramatic take on growing up with a bipolar father in her prior directorial effort Infinitely Polar Bear. Here though, the characters are mostly uninteresting one-note figures who don't grab one's attention, so it's hard to become invested in their plight, while the sense of indecision scattered throughout The Polka King plagues its depiction of Lewan. Is he supposed to be a figure of sympathy, derision, a mixture of both? It's hard to tell, though moments where one is supposed to feel like he's a good guy do come through loud and clear due to overly obvious lines from supporting characters praising the virtues of Jan Lewan.
Not even the presence of reliable comedic actor Jack Black can help out the film's version of Jan Lewan. At least Black is charmingly affable in the role, he's easily one of the best things about this whole affair especially since he can never make his character's accent believable, it always sounds like he's doing an impression rather than a natural accent. He and the rest of the cast seem game for anything and they help keep The Polka King from being any worse than just a painless excursion. If it just had more focus in it's storytelling, or even just funnier jokes, maybe The Polka King wouldn't feel so out of tune.
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