Major
Directed by:
Yuri BykovScreenplay:
Yuri BykovCinematography:
Кирилл КлепаловComposer:
Yuri BykovCast:
Denis Shvedov, Ирина Низина, Ilya Isaev, Yuri Bykov, Борис Невзоров, Dmitriy Kuryanov, Dmitriy Kulichkov, Vladislav Toldykov, Kirill Polukhin, Павел Басов (more)Plots(1)
What if one day you make a mistake that destroys your life? Would you be ready to take the consequences, even if they ruin the happiness of your family? Would you be ready to kill somebody just to hide this mistake? That day Sergey Sobolev, police officer, is driving to the hospital where his wife is about to give birth to their child. High from happiness, he's driving too fast and when he sees a boy on a passage walk, it's too late. He runs him down. The boy dies, and now the major has only two options: go to prison or conceal his crime and stay free. Sobolev decides to compromise with his conscience, and he calls on his friends from the police to help him. But the case turns out to be messy and he understands that this choice resulted in many people's deaths. He finally changes his mind and tries to make up for his deed, but now he has to oppose the system and it's already too late... All the characters in this film have to choose – to cross or not to cross the line, when the price for your choice is life... yours and of the ones you love. And the major – well, he's just an ordinary man... (Rock Films)
(more)Reviews (2)
The brilliantly played game of who's going to be the bigger asshole is brought down at the end by the fact that the final showdown leaves the protagonists talking for around for twenty minutes instead of the vigorous five; by the time they leave the estate, we get some fantastic work with genre clichés. All in all, this is the biggest disappointment of this year's Karlovy Vary Festival.
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The solid Yuri Bykov (The Fool, The Factory), whom I consider the best Russian director, delivers another very unpleasant and chilling drama. A police major accidentally runs over and kills a child and tries to cover it up with his colleagues to avoid jail time, but of course this doesn't sit well with the parents who have lost their son and demand justice. Bykov handles these corruption dramas and thrillers with aplomb, and the strong premise makes this another a chilling and awesome film. 7.5/10.
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