Dead Man's Bluff

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Dead Man's Bluff

Russian DVD cover
Directed by Aleksei Balabanov
Produced by Sergei Dolgoshein
Sergei Selyanov
Written by Aleksei Balabanov
Stas Mokhnachev
Starring Nikita Mikhalkov
Aleksei Serebryakov
Dmitri Dyuzhev
Aleksei Panin
Music by Vyacheslav Butusov
Cinematography Yevgeni Privin
Editing by Tatyana Kuzmichyova
Distributed by STV Cinema Company
Release dates May 24, 2005
Running time 105 min.
Country Russia
Language Russian

Dead Man's Bluff, or Zhmurki (Russian: Жмурки) is a 2005 Russian black comedy/crime film.

Director Aleksei Balabanov, who directed Brother and Brother 2, uses "uniformly ace" (Variety) cameo performances, by Russia's most prominent actors. The film suggests that in the mean free-market streets of Russia in the beginning of 90-s, the only real liberty was the freedom to kill.

Approximately 50 liters of fake blood were used in the film. With the exception of a few scenes in Moscow, the film was shot in Tver, the city formerly known as Kalinin, and Nizhny Novgorod, the city known as Gorky in Soviet times.

The stars of the film include famous Russian actors such as Nikita Mikhalkov (best known to American audiences for his work in Burnt by the Sun), Aleksei Serebryakov, Dmitri Dyuzhev, Aleksei Panin, Sergei Makovetsky, Igor Sukachev, Viktor Sukhorukov, and Renata Litvinova. Actually, there are more than 20 Russian-movie stars in the film, but it's not easy to recognize them immediately since they are all in disguise.

Plot summary

The film opens with a group of university students at a lecture. Their professor tells them, "Start-up capital is how everything begins, making it possible to start a business and multiply the initial investment many times over. The key is how to get that start-up capital...". By way of example, she recalls how it was in Russia a decade earlier.

The movie flashes to Nizhniy Novgorod in the mid-1990s. Simon and Sergei are two young hoodlums working for Sergei Mikhailovich, the local mob boss. Sergei Mikhailovich wears a magenta sports coat and uses a cell phone with an extendable antenna, a symbol of prosperity at that time. Upon learning that a chemist nicknamed "Doctor" has established a makeshift drug lab in the neighborhood, Sergei Mikhailovich sends Simon and Sergei to persuade Doctor to start paying him protection money. Sergei appears to be the smarter of the two hoods, doing all the talking. Simon is more taciturn: a stone cold killer with spring loaded guns hidden in the wide sleeves of his trench coat. After Sergei explains why they are there, Doctor scoffs at them and before they can do anything, two of Doctor's associates appear. In the ensuing shoot-out, Sergei and Simon kill both the Doctor and his associates.

Sergei Mikhailovich is angry that instead of getting protection money, the two hoods killed Doctor, but decides to give the duo another chance to make good. He tells Sergei and Simon to drive to the house of an attorney and exchange a suitcase full of money for a suitcase full of heroin. The two drive to a bar restaurant to relax and discuss the job. Unknown to the duo, a crooked cop named Stepan knows about the deal that is supposed to go down with the attorney. He hires a gangster named Koron and his two associates, Bala and Baklazhan to intercept Sergei and Simon. The gangsters, wearing masks, hold up Sergei and Simon and take the suitcase from them at gunpoint, thinking that the suitcase is full of money. As they later learn, the switch had already happened and the suitcase is full of heroin.

When Sergei and Simon tell Sergei Mikhailovich what happened, he orders them to find Stepan, discover where the drugs were taken, and then kill him. The duo drive to Stepan's apartment, bind him, and begin to brutally torture him. Before long, Stepan tells them where to find the three gangsters who held them up. After that, Simon kills Stepan.

Using the information extracted from Stepan, Sergei and Simon drive to Koron's apartment, but find that Baklazhan is the only person there. Koron had left earlier to try and find Stepan, while Bala stepped out to buy some cigarettes. Sergei and Simon overpower and tie up Baklazhan. He swears that he has no idea who they are or what they are talking about. Sergei begins to search the apartment for the heroin. In the process, he finds a bag filled with guns and masks in the closet, proving that Baklazhan is lying to them.

Soon, a group of gangsters led by a criminal named Mozg show up at the apartment. They were a second group that Stepan had tried to use to hold up Sergei and Simon. The duo shoot all of them except for Mozg. He begins to threaten them. Sergei kills him with a sudden shot to the temple. Soon after, Koron and Bala return to the apartment. Sergei and Simon tie them up and, under threat of torture, Koron gives up the location of the heroin - it was hidden in the oven.

Sergei forces Koron and the two members of his gang to play Russian Roulette with him, which he calls "Zhmurki" (thus, the title of the film). Throughout the entire film, Sergei is seen carrying around a leather folder. In the course of the game, each time Sergei has to shoot at his own temple, he puts the folder between himself and the gun, suggesting that it is for luck. Both Koron and Bala end up killing themselves during the Russian Roulette. Sergei and Simon go to the back room to check on Baklazhan, but he has freed himself from the ropes and gotten a hold of a gun. He shoots Sergei and wounds him in the stomach. Simon quickly reacts and kills Baklazhan. He then lays the bleeding Sergei on the couch and calls a friend who is a medical student. The friend comes over and, after taking a hit of cocaine, pulls out a medical textbook and begins to operate on Sergei while using the textbook as a guide. While his friend is operating, Simon opens Sergei's leather folder and discovers a thick metal plate inside. He realizes that Sergei was never playing Russian Roulette for real.

After the bloodbath at Koron's apartment, Sergei and Simon decide that there is little upside to continuing to work for Sergei Mikhailovich and decide to get out of town and instead hook up with some people they know in Moscow. The duo take the heroin with them—the heroin is their "start-up capital".

The film then flashes forward to 2005. Sergei and Simon have become respected members of the Russian Parliament, or Duma. The duo own a securities trading firm. Sergei Mikhalovich, their old mob boss, now works for them as a security guard.

Literature

  • Florian Weinhold (2013), Path of Blood: The Post-Soviet Gangster, His Mistress and Their Others in Aleksei Balabanov's Genre Films, Reaverlands Books: North Charleston, SC: pp. 115-138.

Cast

External links

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