"Russian Unstoppable"

28.01.2016uranium

At the time of writing this article, the film Alexander Nevsky "Showdown in Manila", where he "brought everyone together", has not yet been released, and the expectations from him are contradictory. On the one hand, the actors there are played by famous ones, and it is not Alexander himself who is directing, but Mark Dacascos, but on the other hand, almost all of these actors at the end of their careers starred in outright sneaky films, and some of them (Wilson, Gruner) did not appear for almost their entire career, and trailer is quite weak and hints that the film will be full of cheap shootouts.

Popularized a wave of action films (and not only) about “Gather everyone together and let’s go for a walk” Stallone, having done quite good "The Expendables", where there was a simple, without excesses, plot (even with some kind of message), many famous action heroes (even Daniels and Roberts were called), a lot of positive cliches from action films, as well as a large amount of action. The disadvantages of this film were the crooked work of the cameraman (they corrected it a little in the director’s cut), a lot of cool deleted scenes (in the re-cut, again, corrected) and the absence of a sensible final boss (although Roberts died beautifully and “according to the canon”) Then there were two worse sequels (in the second they dragged Van Damme). , Adkins and a lot of action at the beginning and end, but spoiled by the cheapness of the environment, a weak villainous cast of only two actors and a small number of fights in the third did not carry anything) and then the wave began.

The question will be asked: have ours (Russia and the CIS) made such attempts? Even as they were, we’ll tell you about them.
The idea of ​​making a team of main characters from top-notch actors is wonderful in itself, but there are a number of problems, of which three stand out:

• The stardom of the actors and the reluctance to share screen time with each other (many remember Belmondo-Delon in the film “Borsalino”). Stallone and Schwarzenegger began acting together only in “The Expendables” - when their careers began to decline and few people began to need them.
• The ability of the director and screenwriters to place several stars on the screen - to reveal each character, give him time, and so on.
• Budget. Star-nuts ask for a lot (Srach Stallone-Willis on the topic of "Undov-3").

In Russia there are fewer such problems - actors are not paid as much as Hollywood actors, and there is an order of magnitude less star power. Plus, there are a lot of actors - and if you refuse the role, a dozen more will take your place. But it's time to move on to films. I will try to take those that are called action films or action-packed films.

"Criminal Quartet" (1989)

A prosecutor's office investigator's little son is kidnapped in order to influence him in a case of theft at a shoe factory. His three comrades - two policemen and a journalist, his friends from the orphanage, unite to help him.

The cast of heroes is stellar even at that time - Karaçentsov, Shcherbakov, Steklov and less-known Eremin. The cast of villains is not inferior: Vadim Spiridonov, Boris Klyuev, Semyon Farada, Oleg Anofriev, Lev Prygunov, Igor Yasulovich. Did it work? Yes. More details:

• There is enough action in the film, but the film cannot be called an action movie - it is an action-packed detective story with music from a thriller. All fights fall on Nikolai Karachentsov and Boris Shcherbakov. There aren't enough action scenes, but many of them are spectacular and memorable (Karachentsov's reprisal against the bandits in the bathhouse and in the boiler room, as well as Shcherbakov's fights). At that time, however, even this was seen as very cool, especially the trick of the hero Karachentsov with jumping into the head of a car driving towards him.
• Each of the characters is given time on the screen and each of them does something: Shcherbakov and Karachentsov fight and humor, Steklov suffers and investigates, Eremin uses connections and also tries to fight, mostly getting hit in the ear. All characters are revealed in one way or another.
• The film has a perestroika atmosphere. It adds realism to what is happening. You definitely empathize with Steklov’s character and the atmosphere of the film is very tense.
• The film has good music by composer Alexander Mikhailov, but it is too dark, as if written, as I already said, for some kind of thriller. It’s especially creepy in combination with the strange scene at the very end, where the skateboard is rolling towards the edge.
• I consider the downside of the film to be the unrealized potential of many of the villains. Spiridonov had experience in action films and action scenes and could have been given a short fight with one of the heroes. The rest mostly sat and talked, except for Igor Yasulovich, who played the schmuck with the last name Shakalov so convincingly that I take my hat off to the actor. IMHO, minus - there would be more fights and better staged ones.

The film is very good and I recommend watching it. There are some minor plot holes in the dialogue, but the dialogue is to the point and either adds humor or moves the plot forward. The actors who played the characters play well and will not let the viewer get bored.
Why do I categorize this film as "Gathered All"? This is given away by a bunch of actors playing the roles of villains. In any case, director Alexander Muratov did a great job.

"The Lion's Share" (2001)

When I found out about this film, there was almost no internet anywhere. But I really wanted to watch it: on the videotape there was a picture depicting Dmitry Pevtsov и Nikolay Karachentsov together in military uniform. Maryanova и Belyaeva I didn't know then. Now the film may also be of interest to the cast - in addition to those mentioned above, there is Chulpan Khamatova, glows sporadically Bukharov-Volkodav, plays one of the bastards Vladimir Zaitsev, plus on backing vocals Boris Klyuev и Nikolay Chindyaykin. In addition, the director is listed Alexander Muratov, renowned action filmmaker (Criminal Quartet, Lotus Strike. Nicknamed the Beast, DDD)

The synopsis will be even more interesting - the commander assembles a squad of old comrades and sends them to complete some unfinished business related to the loss and theft of a nuclear charge by bandits. When the film reached the TV, I joyfully sat down in front of the screen in anticipation of the battle scenes, where Pevtsov and Karachentsov were throwing everyone away right and left.

Guys, I've never been so upset before. This movie is pure crap.
No, at first it’s even interesting - the heroes are traditionally pulled out of their places of work, and some are pulled out of binge drinking. But then, instead of going to the villain’s stronghold and having a hell of a fight there with throwing and headshots, and hanging the GZ performed by Zaitsev on a hook or impaling it on a pin, the heroes are engaged in bullshit and mutual suspicion, then starting to take each other down for nothing (Pevtsov is being taken down first, giving him just one super-short action scene). Chulpan Khamatova plays well, but her character greatly slows down the progress of the plot, the motivation of Maryanov’s character is also not clear at all.

The action disinhibits only at the very end, when Hedgehog (Karchentsov) does arrange the same mochilovo in the main gad’s apartment, but the main gad leaves, and the final chukalovo with Frog (Maryanov) is just a cheap shootout, albeit with the “action-canonical” murder of the latter.

The main plus in the film is Nikolai Karachentsov. All the acting, all the action, EVERYTHING is on him. In second place is Dmitry Maryanov. There's nothing else here. The film is bad as an action film - they warmed up the viewer, but did not really feed them; There are few action scenes here and those are only at the end, the plot consists of a series of betrayals and at the head of everything, as I understand it, is the commander himself. The film is as bad as “Gathering Everyone” - only the Hedgehog is really revealed.

Conclusion - Muratov let us down by filming an incoherent dummy that Karachentsov could have saved, but his strength was not enough. Absolutely not recommended for viewing.

"Gangster Petersburg" (since 2000)

Oddly enough, I will also add this series to my list - an excellent (at first) detective story with elements of a realistic action movie about the turbulent times of the late 90s. The composition is as stellar as possible: Singers, Serebryakov, Lev Borisov, Domogarov, Cyril Lavrov, Porechenkov, Dzhigarkhanyan, Basilashvili, Devotchenko, Litvinov, Sukhorukov and so on. ALL of these actors are given a lot of screen time (that rare case when the series format was used correctly) and all play excellently under the direction of the equally titled Vladimir Bortko. The plot practically does not sag, the scenes are shot to perfection, the actors are squeezed to the maximum, there is great realism of what is happening. Best performance on screen Lev Borisov, I take my hat off to his performance.

There are a LOT of action scenes: Pevtsov has a lot of fights and shootouts, especially the stabbing with Goose and the fight with Litvinov in front of Antibiotic; the scene of the showdown in which Serebryakov participates will forever be remembered as an example of how to talk to bastards; they gave Domogarov a couple of faces to punch (including the final fight with the Skull), and the late Nikolai Rudik demonstrates how to CORRECTLY portray Hitman on the screen. Even Lev Borisov and Olga Drozdova were allowed to fight several times. In addition, the battles are staged very realistically: faces are bloodied, a single precise blow with an object puts an end to the fight, and the heroes are not invulnerable and also get hit and even die.

But alas, you cannot ignore the disadvantages. And they are as strong as the advantages of the series:

• The first minus is the leaking of Chelishchev and Zvantsev. It is clear that this was also the case in Konstantinov’s book, but I believe that this is another “Belmondo going to the helicopter” (Nowadays this is called the sudden Martin Effect). It turns out that I watched a bunch of episodes of their adventures so that the bandits would simply kill them and, as the events of the 4th season showed, all this (collecting incriminating evidence and shaking the Antibiotic empire) was in vain? It was possible to leave one of the heroes alive so that he could reach the “final boss” and deal with him personally. They may tell me - well, if you don’t like sad endings, don’t watch such films. I will answer that there is “The Terminator”, “The End of the World” with Schwarzenegger and “The Giant” with Kieran Culkin and Sharon Stone - they correctly show how to kill the main character at the end, without any Effects or Martins.
• The second disadvantage is that the story stretches out further, which is why Bortko left and the leading actors began to play poorly. Everything could have ended in the third season, where the heroes locked Govorov in prison for life and thereby took revenge on him for the dead (of which there were more than two dozen in the series), but the creators continued further, making things worse and worse, derailing a good series into complete shit.

As a result, BP (the first two seasons and, at a stretch, the third) is an excellent and successful attempt to collect almost all the famous actors of that time, releasing many others. Full disclosure of the 90s theme, lots of fights and shootings and excellent acting and directing work. The first seasons are highly recommended for viewing, the third - as the conclusion of the story, the rest - never mind.

"Gentlemen Officers: Save the Emperor" (2008)

Oleg Fomin, known for his passing roles in action films of the 90s, decides to do a rather worthy thing - to resurrect the “Eastern” genre and call for this as many well-known actors at that time as possible. It was not possible to call many well-known ones, but nevertheless, all the actors are recognizable: Bukharov (Wolfhound), Azarova (advertising model and also an actress who has gained fame), Duzhnikov (DMB), Stychkin, Anatoly Bely, Basharov, Gorevoy, Pavel Abdalov. To improve the quality of the action, they invited Yuri Sysoev and his comrades: Alexander Solovyov and Gennady Sadykhov, giving them a chance to play too. Fomin himself sat down to command the parade. Did it work out? Let's figure it out below:

• The film borrows a lot from the Eastern films of Samvel Gasparov (Hate, Sixth, Forget the word Death) - the Reds against the White Guards and bandits, only here the Whites are good, and the Reds are evil and goats. But it would be better to invite Gasparov himself, who is alive and still directing, to the director’s chair - it would have turned out much better.
• There is action in the film and there is a lot of it, but mostly it is shooting. Alas, most of the scenes are not staged very well - the heroes shoot at the enemy, standing at full height, the angles of the firefights are unsuccessful - they run and shoot in all directions, and the enemies fall; teamwork is shown in only one scene (and this scene is very good - at the crossing); The fencing fight is also not bad, but it is clear that there are doubles. Duzhnikov is mainly responsible for hand-to-hand combat, but all fights look like a single punch, more or less only two fights were filmed - Sysoev against Solovyov and the final one, Fomin against Bely, but both of them are short. There are a lot of explosions and stunts, they are good, but they don’t save the situation.
• The actors tried poorly, only Bukharov, Sysoev, Bely and Gorevoy were remembered, the rest played for free. Sadykhov and Stychkin generally overacted.
• Weak script. Sometimes the action noticeably sags; also, the characters were poorly developed, little time was devoted to the explosives inventor and the Caucasian, more or less the Cossacks-Plastuns and Beytix, the final boss, were shown on the screen. Characters die a lot, but not beautifully, but in a boring way: once they’ve played their game, it’s time to die. Lots of unnecessary characters.
• The film is also weak in the historical aspect - viewers notice many mistakes and inconsistencies.

Total: The film is weak and is only saved by a lot of uneven action that ramps up a lot at the end. The attempt to gather everyone was unsuccessful, the fault being a bad script and sluggish directorial work. Watch just for fun or to kill an hour and a half of free time. If only they had given them a little more hand-to-hand combat and a little more equal action, it would have turned out to be a good passerby.

"The Salamander Key" (2010)

After unsuccessful attempts to “gather everyone,” our would-be filmmakers decided to team up with foreign moviemakers. The attempts turned out to be a bummer (Mirror Warriors, for example), but ours decided to try better and announced the trailer"Salamander Key". He turned out to be promising - at the head of the serial cast of actors (Oleg "Sea Devil" Chernov, Valery "Bourgeois" Nikolaev, Alexey Gorbunov, etc.) is himself Fedor Emelianenko; plus the final boss will be depicted Rutger Hauer, and his assistant is Michael Madsen. The film was directed by Alexander Yakimchuk, who had previously made NTV series about special forces (at one time suitable for viewing). The action will take place in the jungle. The film was a long-term construction and this raised suspicions. They were not in vain - the film did not work out.

• At first, even everything is not bad - it seems that the plot is interesting (special forces investigation of the murky activities of mercenaries in the jungle and the rescue of biologists) and they showed teamwork, and the fights are suddenly of high quality! But the further into the forest, the complete...
• The film sags wildly in the middle, and the characters begin to be just as wildly stupid (Spoiler - Nikolaev will be killed very soon, Chernov will also be dismissed as an idiot). In the end, the biologist was saved, but everyone was killed.
• Action... Fedor did not disappoint, showing realistic fights and combat sambo, knocking out with one or two blows and even shooting a little. Despite the fact that he didn’t have to do anything in the game, he looked charismatic. However, when you download clippings from his fight on YouTube, you will understand that in fact Fedya was not enough. The second fighter was the Korean Kim Bo Sung, he also pleased with the final showdown at the end to the music of Shevchuk. The rest of the action was shooting and staged unevenly - the shootouts were sometimes good, sometimes ugly.
• Lots of unnecessary characters and stupid deaths (like this Thai cop)
• Completely idiotic (I really want to swear, but they won’t let the retsukha pass) directorial moves. The main one, I think, is the unshown final showdown between Fedor, DeLong and Hacker, who has transformed from a brat into a man, with Madsen and his mercenaries. Here we see Fyodor crossing himself behind a machine gun and.... Here's a close-up of the roaring biological scientist! What about the action? Well, listen to the shots. For this, you have to hit him in the face - imagine, in Rambo, instead of the final demolition of the enemy base, we are shown the faces of freed prisoners, on whose faces flashes of explosions are reflected, or the finale from Kickboxer, where for about five minutes they show the face of a joyful Mai Lee, and the fight itself is in the form of sounds. Good idea? If yes, then you are an arthouse fan and you are on the wrong site.

The disadvantages outweighed the advantages and made the film bad, killing another hope of making not just an action movie where everyone was gathered, but a normal Russian action film AT ALL. By the way, many people argue with me. calling the film good. They have two arguments - “Fedya is there!” and “Young man, there is also a DEEP and INTENTIONAL scene of the death of biologists from the detachment accompanied by COOL MUSIC.” I don’t argue that the scene is not bad and Fedor, I repeat, did not disappoint - but why can’t the WHOLE FILM be shot like this?!

Hack and predictor Aviator: Look. Say the phrase “Russian combat cinema has been in the ass, and will remain so.” Switch off.

There is hope for Nevsky’s film, but it fades with each trailer. I would really like that Alexander didn’t let him down and didn’t cheat at least in the amount of combat in the screen time. Because if the Showdown in Manila team fails, then you don’t have to watch Russian action films ever again.

But seriously, you need to hire a smart screenwriter and often contact the audience and ask what and how they would like to see. Peace to all and bye.

Author: uranium
Especially for Fight-Films.Info

Home » Reviews » Author's reviews » "Russian Unstoppable"
Tags: Bandit Petersburg, Gentlemen Officers, Salamander Key, Criminal Quartet, Lion's share, Rutger Hauer, Fedor Emelianenko

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