Sick Product of a Sick System

Pretty Good

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Following up Magnet, my copy does have English subtitles in packaging that is otherwise Russian, dated 2002. The translation is so bad as to add considerably to the humor: somebody has a dictionary and is taking the first entry. Thus the ship will 'float away' to Sumatra, the Chicago gang is selling 'homemade whiskey,' nary an 'a', 'an', or 'the', and very creative use of prepositions. A good fraction of the dialog is in English, enough to follow the plot even without translation.This is a different style of humor than we North Americans are used to, reminding me of the early Soviet satirist Bulkagov, or Ilf and Petrov in 'The Twelve Chairs'. The star player, Jerzy Stuhr, is strongly reminiscent of Mel Brooks, and plays a constantly frustrated American killer to the hilt. Watch for the scene on the Odessa steps.If anyone can identify who is singing the Deja Vue theme at the end, I'd be grateful.

Let me try to explain why Deja vu is one of my favorite movies ever. In the opening shots, while the credits still run across the screen, most movies will show some boring landscape. Or a hero traveling and thinking (or rather pretending to think). Deja vu starts with a scene with 4 nested meanings! As you might know, in the opera "Carmen" the soldiers shoot Carmen's lover. But all opera-goers know this is entertainment, so they don't really kill him. (SPOILER START) But in Deja Vu, the assassin is hired to kill the singer, so at the moment when the actors playing soldiers shoot him on the scene, the assassin shoots from a real gun, so the singer is killed for real!(SPOILER END) But you know it's all happening within a movie, so he's not really dead! A modern philosopher could write several thick volumes on this phenomena of nested meanings alone, but what does the director do? Throws it away, as this whole scene is just there to introduce us to the main character's profession. This is the way the whole movie is done - there is a plot, but it's full of twists, laughs and jokes on everybody and everything. You don't care much for the assassin or his target, but how can you forget the Hitler-lookalike German bike coach? Or the heroes answer to the question about his interests ("jazz, box and sex")? A scene that spoofs the famous Eisenstein's "Bronenosets Potyomkin"? It's a farce for farce's sake, and it makes you literally roll on the floor laughing.

The plot is well-known and can be put aside.Why "a dropping eye"? Dramatic elements of this comedy are as numerous as the comical ones: the girl's disappearance from the hotel, the so true-to-life strict control over every man's actions, the atmosphere of mass hysteria and phobia that can only be drowned in liquor, the pointless, though quite optimistic, existence of man in a communist society.It is one of those movies that show wit and glory of our cinema. For instance, there is no need to sit for hours with the eyes glued to the screen showing "The Godfather" trilogy. You can watch this little film of the 1988 and get a clear idea of the whole mafia monkey business.To dislike the main character (who is hit-man by profession and likes jazz, boxing, and sex) is just impossible. Look at the way he smiles and behaves - he is a kind of tragic hero, a child with a gun. Like those killer-girls from anime.Though the movie is a cult favourite for nearly every Russian cinema connoisseur and I would set it firmly in the national top 100, it is to be watched with a good background (some knowledge of the Russian language and the history of our country of the early 1920s are a must to enjoy this comedy's undercurrents) and can easily miss a westernized or oriental mind. The scene with Mayakovskiy reciting his "Ya dostayu iz shirokih shtanin..." is fabulous. The "Hitler" guy is ridiculous. The pioneer's speech about oligarchs and Charlie Chaplin is witty. The interaction with "Bronenosets Potyomkin" is over-the-top absurd. And so on and so forth.On international level it's 8 out of 10, not to everybody but still very neat. Thank you for attention.

This movie deserves to be recognized. It is an original comedy spoofing the early years of the Soviet empire, with all their grotesque and pretentiousness. It is a story of an American killer-for-hire, who is sent by the Mafia to kill an informer. Out of all places, the informer is hiding in the newly Soviet Russia. The killer is mistaken for the well-known scientist traveling around the world, so the Soviet bureaucracy kicks in the high gear, determined to show off the new wonderful Russia for the famous foreign 'scientist'. With all the attention and constant companionship of one over-zealous Soviet tour guide (a hilarious turn by an unknown Russian actress), the killer gets in all these ridiculous situations just to follow up on his contract. In turn, the informer knows that the mob guys are after him and decides to strike first. In short, it is a never ending situational romp with funny one liners that I remember to this day (even though I saw it when I was a child growing up in Russia).Now, I don't think this movie is available with subtitles, so you've got to know your Russian before you see it. You won't be sorry - the actors are superb (especially the Polish actor, who also appeared in 'Novie Amazonki'), the script is smart and funny as hell, and the early years of Soviet Empire have never looked so ridiculous as in this film.