Greece has seen an influx of migrants and refugees for some years, the subject of Amerika Square, an engrossing drama with some echoes of the Humphrey Bogart classics To Have and Have Not and Casablanca. In the Bogart role is Billy (Yannis Stankoglou), a world-weary bar owner and tattoo artist with an off-the-books ink parlor. Stankoglou has a chiseled and rough face made for cinematic anti-heroes, and he plays the part brilliantly. Billy is easily underestimated as a mere observer of life and secretly a fixer ready to mobilize when his passion for an underdog is stirred.
The story is actually a gradual intersection of three narratives, one concerning Billy’s commitment to helping a North African singer, Thereza (Ksenia Dania) flee Greece and a mobster's control. Another thread concerns Billy’s lifelong friend Nakos (Makis Papadimitriou), a 38-year-old slacker living with his parents, half-heartedly looking for work and incensed about the concentration of North African, Afghan, Pakistani, Russian, and Syrian refugees comprising a neighborhood melting pot. As his resentment intensifies (commensurate with his desperation for a job and purpose), Nakos resorts to a horrifying form of vigilante revenge that will strike back in a personal way.
Finally, there is Tarek (Vassilis Koukalani), a Syrian trying to get to Berlin with his daughter, who turns to a human smuggler to arrange everything. When that plan blows up, Tarek ends up in Billy’s orbit, and the film intensifies, heading toward a powerful conclusion.
Filmmaker Yannis Sakaridis, who also co-wrote the screenplay, demonstrates firm control over the trio of stories that eventually fold together, and he coaxes memorable performances from everyone. From Billy’s grimy tattoo parlor to the Athens streets where refugees from everywhere converge, the geography and sociology of Nilly’s and Nakos’ neighborhood is very much a character in Amerika Square. The question for the principals is, how do you reconcile the loss of Greek purity when the world’s migrants are coming to you? Strongly recommended.