I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

Good start, but then it gets ruined

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

What looks like an ego competition between Russian agent and Jewish oligarch clearly reminds a fruitful "Collaboration" of Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. The story thus contains a healthy Russian/Jewish humor, including Soviet-time hilarious citations. All the interfering gunmen providing the great Bourne Trilogy style background. Russian Mafia/ KGB, performed by the titular actors, do their best to send their message: "We're not playing around". But the Russian Rambo is , as always, supposed to win twice, and he soundly does prove his point. There's also a drama. Not that deep, it'll leave you crying; still serving a viewer with the half-happy-end surprising dish. 8 out of 10, by the highest Hollywood standards.

The quality of the movie is technically very good, it is well funded, has some not-so-bad actors, a good camera, cut, and so on. As Russian directors and producers are often very inventive and precise in pulling out a maximum from a limited budget, this movie is in technical terms comparable with modern western productions. Pacing is fast enough, characters more or less are sympathetic and interesting. The story itself, well, it isn't exactly a piece of art. The whole movie seems to be made with the thought 'Hey, we are poor but we can do the same like the rich with a fraction of their cost', where I have to add, ' and with more brutality'. Brutality against someone who may deserve it, even a high ranking mobster and brain for illegal financial transaction of the Russian mob, is unfortunately a main occurrence in this movie, otherwise I would have given it a six. Primarily the movie says to me that brutes from Russia are more brute than ours, even if they are the good ones. I'm OK with that, so I give a five. For a optimum enjoyment of the time with the movie, there have several cans of beer to be involved, I assume. However, without the beer, this action flick has drive enough to hold one till the foreseeable end. At least, here the hero does not (so often) escape some 30000 bullets only with sheer luck, but with supreme fighting and shooting skills. On the other hand, he is capable to defeat five to ten shooters at once. Such a man would be paid appropriately even in Russia - simply by getting a high rank.

After watching some of new Russian movies, I was surprised that I liked this one. Really, it is quite entertaining and I enjoyed watching it. Of course some of the things don't seem realistic (like killing 30 people at time, I think that he would have at least 10 bullets in his body :D), but as the whole plot is quite interesting you can easily close your eyes at this kinda things. I can't say that this was the best Russian movies in 2008, but I think it was one of the best... This movies contains everything,interesting plot, nice play by actors, beautiful scenery of Monaco, it's adventurous thriller with some very cute jokes, so I advice it to everyone who likes this kind of movies. Hope you'll enjoy it.