DEAD MAN'S BLUFF

A persiflage of Russian action movies in the immediate post-Soviet era, when the pressure of “primary accumulation” was triggering bloody feuds among mafia gangs – on screen and in real life, too. Throughout the bloodthirsty scenes of violence the gestures and speech of the star-studded Russian cast are so exaggerated that the clichés of the genre are reduced to total banality. In a small Russian town, Simon and Sergej must either safely deliver to local mafia boss Michalyč (Nikita Michalkov in an unexpected role) a suitcase full of heroin, or else pay with their lives… The film is set in the early 1990s, but the credits include a fl ash forward to the present, and we learn how things have changed in the new Russia.