Disappointment for a huge fan!

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

First and foremost, this is a movie with no sense at all. It's just a two-hour video about nothing. Just video clips about big time criminals that no one knows where does each scenario follow.Second, the team-up between the two leads is boring. There's no action between the two guys. The antagonists are lame too. The leads are lame. The cop's wife and daughter are lame. The other cops are lame. Everyone's lame! Even the doctor is lame! Third, if the characters are lame, then the script should be lame too! Actually, it's the script that I like the most, even if it's not so good. The bastard cop is just corny and and I can't help but laugh. Other than that, nothing.Lastly, the ending. I really don't understand this crap. We have seen drug trafficking, lame mafia bosses, the cop's suicidal family drama, a porn magazine and a scene involving an ugly crack head throwing his sissy hos in a pool... and then we see an Asian guy meditating and some ancient philosophical quote appeared in the ending that has something to do with life but has little to do with everything. What's with that? What is this film really about? Nothing! I don't know if the director was a film school kick-out, but I'm so sure this is so amateur film-making. Even a 13-year old film geek can make a better action film than this one.

Just watched this unbearable flick and got so angry for wasting 2 hours on this mess that I felt it my obligation to warn others, although my expectations were set low this was just incredibly bad.1: The first thing that hit me was the editing, no pacing, there is a complete absence of rhythm in the cuts, in fact it was so bad that my eyes literally hurt and constantly went out of focus most of the time. They keep using cliché defocus in/out and lots of bloom effects that doesn't help moving the story forward one bit, it's only weird at best (bad weird). My eyes still hurt from it...2: The story, guess what! there is no story, it seems the director just took bits and pieces out of old rehashed Hollywood action flicks and randomly just plagiarized them with absolutely no logic sense at all....it's just baaad..3: Uneven quality, most of the scenes look like film and pretty OK I must say but some scenes really has that DV look to them that just takes you right out of the "story". It's a shame to see all this work go to waste because of lack of script and crappy editing, it's really a shame...As I sat there watching the movie I constantly wondered if better editing would do the trick but after maybe an hour or so I started to realize that no matter how much editing there still wouldn't be much of a movie.The one good thing I can say about the movie is Michael Madsen is in it, but he doesn't get much screen time, maybe 5 minutes tops. Some or maybe most set design is on par with Hollywood style I guess and the finishing shot in the end is really beautiful but thats about all the good things I can say about this movie, no exceptional action scenes here no sir...

I agree with sb-38 completely I voted 3, but it was a very hard thing to do, because this movie sucks. When they advertised it on TV they said it was a quote "super action movie" those are the exact words. They put so much visual "effects" (lighting, color enhancement, etc.) in it that it is hard to watch, the idea of the movie is old, the story sucks, it is very hard to follow the movie, the scenes change for no reason and they are almost not connected, the dialogs are stupid and corny, the jokes are flat, events in the scenes are expected, action scenes suck, the main "thing" of the movie is fast forward in the scenes and then normal speed/looking from different angles and "unexpected places"/lighting effects. And in the end I would like to say that new Russian movies (including this one) copy American movies and even steal ideas and effects and the thing that I hate the most is that they say that American movies suck and then copy them and say that it is a unique movie. So if you need to get angry about wasting your time - watch this movie.

OK, it is a Russian propaganda movie, OK it was made with Russian state money to promote something. But why make it such a bad movie? Director who made this movie should make only clips on MTV. Because except flashes and style stolen from American movies this movie doesn't have anything of value. There is no character development, so you don't care about them. So this movie has very good advertising clips, but nothing besides them. There is no clear script, anything is told to you by main character "thoughts". Most modern Russian TV short series are much better and even old "Brat" and "Brat 2" (Brother and Brother-2) are much better.