The Ballad of the Ballad of the Whiskey Robber

As you may have heard, Hungary is about to get famous - big-time, Hollywood famous. According to news reports, venerable American studio Warner Bros. has bought the film rights to the recently-published international bestseller about the rise and fall of Attila Ambrus, a.k.a the "Whiskey Robber." More movie-land tittle-tattle has quirky leading man Johnny Depp slated to play the famous bandit, who committed a string of audacious armed robberies in Budapest during the turbulent 1990s.

In an age in which the only thing more important than being rich is being famous, part of me is overjoyed at the prospect of a hit movie in which contemporary Hungary plays a starring role, rather than just being a backdrop (as in the dismal "I Spy") or a body-double (as in the far better "Spy Game," in which Budapest stood in for Cold War Berlin.) As the old saying goes, there's no such thing as bad PR, as long as they spell your name right. And it's not too hard to spell "Hungary."

A bigger part of me, however, is aghast at the idea that Ambrus's tale might become the defining element of Hungary's international "brand," or that the story of the bank robber known to most Hungarians as Viszkis continues to get more oxygen of any kind.

While several books have been written about Ambrus since his capture and imprisonment five years ago, the most successful to date is the Ballad of the Whiskey Robber, by the American author Julian Rubinstein. The book has received plaudits from reviewers, and for the most part deserves these reviews. Indeed, it strikes me as a textbook for the sort of rigorous reporting and attention to detail that sets truly serious non-fiction writers apart, and that journalists in Hungary and everywhere should emulate. So obviously meticulous is his reporting, in fact, that I found my long-held prejudice against the popular literary device of reconstructing dialogue from long-ago conversations melting away. In short, I would say that, despite the attempts by some to question the accuracy of the book, this is without a doubt the definitive account of the case. Moreover, it is written in an absolutely wonderful blow-by-blow style that I assume Rubinstein honed while working as a sportswriter.

That said, the book suffers from one rather serious flaw: it is, in my opinion, morally and to a degree intellectually bankrupt. And given that most books that are made into movies are better than the movies they are made into, I fear that the film will be downright brain-dead and depraved.

The problem is rather straightforward. In both the book and (you can only assume) the movie, Ambrus is treated as a hero, or, as Rubinstein (left) calls him, "a decent man doing his best under trying circumstances." I won't deny that the decade after the collapse of Communism was a "trying" time of anxiety and even unexpected deprivation for many in Hungary and other countries in the region. But to call or paint Ambrus as a "decent" man forced into a life of crime by the economic and institutional chaos of the period strikes me as indecent. In reality, Ambrus was nothing more than a selfish, violent, and ultimately foolish hood who simply avoided getting captured or killed long enough for the tabloid media to turn him into the criminal version of one of the morons from reality TV.

Defenders of the book and movie would probably respond to this by saying that it is the job of storytellers - in this case Rubinstein and whoever makes the film - to tell stories, rather than being overly concerned with issues of morality. In general I follow this line as well, and would actually take it further and argue that the job of the book publishing and film industries should be to make money for their shareholders. The problem is that, at least in this case, the Hollywood/New York entertainment industrial complex is obviously quite concerned with issues or morality.

If you doubt that this is true, just consider how far the Viszkis story would have gone in Manhattan or LA had Ambrus been some other form of colorful criminal rather than a relatively courteous bank robber. Imagine Rubinstein and his agent pitching the following anti-heroes to publishers or movie studios:

• The Whiskey Rapist: A colorful and true-to-himself lone wolf, he drinks a half-bottle of his favorite whiskey before he goes out and rapes women in the streets of chaotic, post-communist Hungary, becoming a legend in his own time and an inspiration to millions of disaffected ordinary citizens

• The Whiskey Gypsy-Beater: A colorful and true-to-himself lone wolf, he drinks a half-bottle of his favorite whiskey before he goes out and beats up Gypsies and other hated racial minorities in the streets of chaotic, post-communist Hungary, becoming a legend in his own time and an inspiration to millions of disaffected ordinary citizens
• The Whiskey Asset-Stripper: A colorful and true-to-himself lone wolf, he drinks a half-bottle of his favorite whiskey before he embezzles millions of dollars from companies he has picked up on the cheap due to his political connections in chaotic, post-communist Hungary, becoming a legend in his own time and an inspiration to millions of disaffected ordinary citizens.

No, I can't either. Then again, I have a hard time imagining how it is that people fool themselves into believing that it is somehow appropriate to portray armed robbery as anything but the horrible act of inhumanity and selfishness that it is. But maybe that's just because I am unlucky enough to have been the victim of three such crimes in my life, including one I was lucky to have escaped alive.

What I find especially galling are the constant suggestions in Rubinstein's book that the asset-stripping, corruption and "wholesale" economic crimes that were and are an inevitable part of the transition to democratic capitalism somehow excuse Ambrus for his "retail" crimes, or were worse than his crimes. They don't, and they weren't. The only difference between Ambrus and Gábor Princz - the most notorious white-collar criminal during the period in question - is that Princz was a bit smarter, and Ambrus a bit better-looking. They are both scum.

Depp (left) and the would-be hero: If you throw in a few rapes and Gypsy-beatings, you could call it an art film

A few weeks ago I asked Valter Fülöp, the police major who was the chief investigator in the case, about the Rubinstein book and the upcoming movie. He pointed out that, while often courteous to those he robbed, Ambrus did not hesitate to physically abuse his victims, in one case dragging a bank employee across a room by her hair, and in another smashing a woman in the head with his gun. (A gun, I would point out, that he on two occasions fired during the commission of a robbery.) Fülöp said he was especially "fed up" with the myth that Ambrus was some sort of Robin Hood, as he never gave away anything that he took, other than to some of his confidantes and Budapest's casinos.

To be fair to Ambrus, Rubinstein pointed out to me that Ambrus had not been convicted of the charges of attempted murder and other acts of wonton violence Fülöp and others have accused him of. And to be fair to Rubinstein, he makes it very clear in his book that Ambrus was indeed no Robin Hood, and instead squandered most of the money he stole on luxuries for himself, not least on chips at Budapest's casinos.

But the smartest thing I've ever heard said about the story that may soon define Hungary internationally came from Mihály Dezsi, a police spokesman. "This is human stupidity," Rubinstein quotes Dezsi as saying at the peak of Viszkis mania. "It was 27 counts of armed robbery. Full stop."

What explains the human stupidity of portraying Ambrus as a decent or even heroic man? Well, one obvious answer is money. No publisher or movie studio is going to buy a story about the real heroes of 1990s Hungary, namely the normal people who toiled away in obscurity trying to build an honest, open society from the moral and economic rubble of the failed Soviet order. (While the Hungarian media has reported - and a previous version of this piece suggested - that Rubinstein had received $500,000 to write the book, he told me the number was less than $50,000, and that, given his years of research, he was actually out money on the deal. I not only believe him on this, but believe his assertion that he his primarily motivation in hunting down the Viszkis story was an interest in the story itself, which at the time probably did not seem like much of a literary goldmine. Meanwhile, he told me the movie deal is similarly not a jackpot, and I believe him here as well.)

But the economics of what you might call "Whiskey Robber Inc." are only the symptom. Naturally, the people who control America's literary/cinema industrial complex generally try to buy what they think they can sell to audiences in America and around the world. But many of the supposedly sophisticated and sensitive people who decide what viewers around the world get to decide what to read or watch are themselves infected with the same macho empowerment fantasies and diseased, proto-Marxist notions of redistributionist justice as the empty-headed suburban teens who are their most reliable customers. Ambrus's story perfectly fits the world-view of this bohemian bourgeois (or "Bobo") class, people who demand all the affluence, status and personal security and autonomy that success in a liberal market society can offer, but who narcissistically seek to put themselves above it by championing those who most brazenly defy its norms, and by mocking those who try to pull themselves up by playing by the rules. Though again, to be fair, I would probably share or not be so offended by these views had I not had so many guns stuck in my face over the years.

There are other, unrelated problems with the rolling out of the Viszkis brand internationally. László Juszt, former host of the TV program "Kriminális," who is featured heavily in Rubinstein's book, said he will sue Rubinstein if the author doesn't respond to Juszt's claims of inaccuracies in the book. (Rubinstein told me that the supposed inaccuracies Juszt is going on about either do not involve facts, or details such as what time of day a victim in an unrelated crime was shot.) Juszt also says he and the whole country are presented in a bad light by Rubinstein. Meanwhile, Fülöp told me that a Hungarian director named György Dobrai has signed a contract with Ambrus that gives Dobrai the exclusive rights to make a movie about his life.

But I am less concerned about these problems than the notion that this scumbag could soon become the world's most famous Hungarian, and a role model for millions. And that is leaving aside the likelihood that, if it is made, we will be seeing more of this, and perhaps even this.

So what can or should be done? Well, I suppose you could write a letter to the head of Warner Bros., a certain Mr. Barry Meyer, or to Johnny Depp, who has apparently joined with WB in buying the rights to the book, and tell them not to make the mistake of making Ambrus a hero.

On the other hand, this may be one of those cases where a slightly more direct approach is required. If and when they actually make their cinematic kiss to Viszkis, my guess is that they'll be doing it here in Budapest, filming at some of the banks, post offices, travel agencies and other locations that Ambrus robbed and terrorized. Perhaps they might rethink their vision for the picture if, for example, angry locals keep stealing their cameras, cutting their generator cables, or even kidnapping their cast-members at gunpoint.

I, of course, would never suggest that anyone take the law into their own hands like this. But boy would it make a great article, and maybe even a lucrative book and movie deal, too.

UPDATE: After having a few discussions with Julian Rubinstein, I have made several changes and additions to this story, all with the intent of making the record as clear as possible, and being fair to a guy who probably didn't need to wake up this morning and read that his hard-won literary achievement might unleash a global wave of boozed-up banditry. But as for you, Johnny Depp, all bets are off.