This movie reminded me, just a little, of a 21st century Hansel and Gretel, sans Gretel. The story the moonshiner told about the barn fires, had me laughing. The cops and the vodka kinda made the movie. Watch it, there really are no wasted words in the movie, and the scenery was a clear winter day, except for the other half, which was rain. I really enjoyed this up to the end.
There's a little SPOILER in the following post.
For me, the story leading up to the murder was added to the movie just for a good measure - to make the plot more cohesive. It is the investigation that is important. That was true and sad reality back in communist Poland (and any other country of eastern block before the fall of Soviet Union).
Eight or so officers just to do a recontruction of events, drunken prosecutors and police officers, corrupt government making a political case out of criminal one, political murders and frameups - these thing did happen and are happening in many places all over the world. But it's also shown that there are still some decent people that try to do the right thing - although doing the right thing is in this case very dangerous.
And the saddest thing in the movie for me is not the murders, not the non-stop drinking of gverment officials but the fact, they had to take nine months pragnent police officer to the crime scene. Why? Because there was no phone at her house and neither her neighbors nor anyone else in town would have helped her if she went to labor. Just because she was a police officer.