Fresh and Exciting

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Pavel Lungin's "Oligarkh" (alternately called "Tycoon" and "Tycoon: A New Russian" in English) looks at the free-for-all that dominated post-Soviet Russia. The protagonist becomes the richest man in the country through all manner of vile means. It was unfortunate that Boris Yeltsin, initially seen as a champion of democracy, sold his country off to the old functionaries who became oligarchs. Some have fallen from grace and even faced criminal prosecution, depending on which ones the government favors.I understand that Platon Makovsky is based on Boris Berezovsky. It probably could have just as easily focused on any of the magnates who rose to prominence in the 1990s. The point is, these ruthless people turned the Russian Federation into their playground.It's not a masterpiece, but worth seeing.

The acting was good to excellent, and the overall plot themes were clear. This group of friends leaps into post-Soviet Russia and makes a fortune by bending the rules such that there are rules, and playing the political side of the economic game. In the course of doing this, they run afoul of a government that is equally corrupt. This is a setting that a well made film might turn into a masterpiece.Unfortunately it doesn't happen. There are so many throwbacks and forward scenes that one would need to watch the movie with pen and paper in hand, tracing the characters and their actions to try and keep track of the specifics. The movie tries to help out by actually labeling each scene with a timeline, before and after the death of Plato, the central character. But even with these guideposts, the back and forth movement of time requires extraordinary effort to translate into meaningful flows and never develops a satisfying momentum. It is akin to reading a history in which a few paragraphs of Alexander are followed by a series on Hiroshima and then by a brief exposition on the founding of Rome, followed by a vignette on the Crusades.No doubt some will see this approach as a puzzle challenge. Personally I thought it interfered with both the entertainment value of Tycoon, and the capacity of the movie to sustain intensity of interest. The end result is a crippled performance in which one is tempted to throw up their hands and say, "Ah, they are all just crooks, let's see some action". If that was the intent, the movie does provide some gratification, but it could have been so much more.

SPOILERS"If we can't buy Kreml we must become ourselves Kreml!"After seeing the disk in the neighborhood video-shop and every time passing it over I finally came to the point where nothing worthy of my attention was left to rent. So I grabbed this, out of desperation and rented it expecting something quite bad. Boy I couldn't be more wrong. Since the beginning I knew the stakes were high - a red writing in the middle of the screen announcing "the day of Platon's death" (the main character Platon Makovsky). Then a retrospection showing his rise to power. Constantly back and forth, then and now. An investigator has been arrived all the way from Ural to investigate Platon Makovski because obviously the whole issue is too delicate to be left to someone from the Moscow DA. Some very high government employees are involved, even the FSB (the former KGB) and Shmakov (the investigator from Ural) has the unpleasant job of interrogating the friend circle. But this is where all comes to light... "The rise to power" segments show how Makovski and his friends, young economics experts start to make money after the fall of the communist regime with the assistance of a georgian (that's Gruzia) who appears to be connected to some of the crime structures. This jolly group of university friends quickly learns how to use their brains in order to cheat the system to steal and basically get their hands on everything they possibly can and how to wash the money, with their first achievement of controlling the automobile factory in Tbillisi - Georgia. After this they go straight to the top. In personal aspect Platon gains a powerful and bitter enemy in the face of the party functionary Koretsky. As time passes they become real oligarkhs and billionaires and of course their enemies (who basically don't have anything personal against them but want a piece of the pie) become more and stronger until the bitter end. The movie has very strong cinematography, powerful editing, very beautiful music score and a great soundtrack. Wonderful dialogs, especially for Russian speaking people, I suppose in English some of the essence might be lost. Platon's 44th birthday is a godfather-esquire event - very large in scale, reminding me of the parties from "The great Gatsby". Great acting, especially from the supporting cast - Andrei Krasko as Shmakov and Levan Uchaneishvili as Larry are brilliant. Alexandr Baluyev as Koretsky, Maria Mironova as Masha and Vladimir Mashkov as Platon are also very good. The same things that can be said about the beginning are valid about the end - very powerful. Through the film goes on and on the question "who done it" but that's not particularly hard to guess... One downbeat moment towards the end - the little kids Platon and Musa - the kid-actors can't act at all and the scene itself was if not pointless really not needed. The movie is loosely based on Boris Abramovich Berezovski, who financed the rise of the Russian president Vladimir Putin (known to be a former colonel from the KGB). However after Putin became president he made clear that while Berezovski's money is welcome, he is not. The whole affair is known as "the godfather vs. Kreml" and Berezovski is living now in London in exile.-"Nedless to say, one of you has killed him" -"Has or hasn't... everybody wanted it..."

"Tycoon" may not succeed as a political film or piece of social criticism, but I don't think it was meant be those things. "Tycoon" was obviously meant to be first and foremost an interesting, entertaining crime drama, and on this count I think it succeeds marvelously. It has timeless themes: loyalty, betrayal, greed, envy, power, love, lust. To me the fact that it is based on the 1990's Russian oligarchs is almost secondary. It's more like a good war movie - the time and place is really just a setting, a backdrop used to tell a good story. The script is beautifully structured, the actors all give terrific performances, the direction is understated and confident. Unexpected things happen, scenes jump back and forth through time, and the pacing is excellent. Even though it's got the "a gangster's life" story arc (similar to The Godfather, Casino and the hugely overrated Scarface) in which the risks are taken, trusts made and broken, beautiful women seduced, liquor poured, bullets sprayed, etc., from scene to scene you aren't quite sure exactly who will do what. It holds your interest from beginning to end. No doubt there is a great documentary to be made about the rise and fall of the actual oligarchs or "New Russians", one which could tie together with great detail the entire true story. But "Tycoon" isn't that film, and I think it's arguable that it's better because if it.