Oligarkh (Tycoon: A New Russian) (2002)

Remember that Russian Contemporary Culture class I'm taking? No? Well, I'm taking it. And it involves quite a number of films made after the fall of the Soviet Union, which is awesome for me since I've actually never watched Russian films before. After Little Vera introduced me to the nation's filmmaking, I was assigned Tycoon, an interesting look at the insanely rich businessmen who took over Russia's economy in the 1990's. It starts as a murder mystery when insanely rich and influential businessman Platon (Vladimir Mashkov) is assassinated, and small-time judge Schmakov (Andrey Krasko) is assigned to interview his close-knit circle of associates.

Through a series of interviews and flashbacks, the viewers are introduced to Platon and his best friends Masha, the goofy chubby one, Mark, the regular one, Viktor, the smart one, and Larry, the Georgian with underhanded methods. Viktor's bitter wife and Platon's manipulated lover are also thrown into the mix. In the late eighties Platon and Co took advantage of the introduction of small-time capitalism and after the Soviet Union collapsed they became incredibly wealthy and powerful through a successful car dealership. They engaged in illegal trading, media control, political maneuvering, and a little bit of murder, but the importance of their friendship becomes the focus of the story.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Tycoon. Its description as "The Russian Godfather" did not give me high expectations. Like many foreign-language films it is quite long, and also features a large amount of characters, many of whom aren't properly introduced until later in the story, causing me some confusion for the first half hour or so. Despite these drawbacks, it manages to become an engrossing study of this group of friends and how they drew power from a fractured economic system, while mixing in a good dose of mystery and murder. There's such a range of characters and plot points that I was consistently interested in the story, even if I wasn't always sure what was going on (it is intentionally ambiguous at certain times).

The development of such a complex, likable-despite-himself kind of figure as Platon is done exceptionally well. Because we see him first as a mulleted jeans manufacturer who wrote fake theses for extra money, it's easy to see him first as a likable, if opportunistic and overly-confident, guy. His transformation into a ruthless, greedy tycoon is unexpected and gradual. While I wasn't necessarily on his side, I was interested in his actions and in how he interacted with both friends and enemies. Tycoon is a slick, interesting film that almost sneaks the dramatic character study into a thrilling murder mystery. Except for the naive judge Schmakov, none of the characters seem to have much of a moral compass, making it fun to see where they will finally draw the line.

4/5