The first time I tried to watch this film I think at 11 years old, and it was not the age and the time when I wanted Russian comedies, but in general I noticed and appreciated that humor goes almost nonstop. However, the film seemed confusing and tedious to me at the time, and I squandered a significant part of it on the video, moving immediately to the end.
After so many years, it was interesting to come back and rediscover this painting. And she's gorgeous! Even for the adult viewer, the film is exhausting. It's long, it could be 20 minutes shorter, and then it would be perfect. Yes, there is such a problem here – the middle sags, the authors definitely caught a wave on it when they had a huge energy to play and shoot more and more, but they little ceased to understand what they are doing. That is, look, at the beginning of the film there was an evil political satire, a criminal comedy and high-quality buffoonery, and in the middle one brother portrays the reflection of the other, makes his faces, they swear, then fraternize, and several times kiss one woman ... Events in the middle do not affect the end. I was convinced that the film had to be rested on the editing table, and it was regretted.
I'll highlight some film sins. Not that logic is of great importance to farcical comedy, but here is the wish:
- The newly mined diamond already has a faceted appearance.
- Lots of people believe that Rabbits could have swallowed a diamond the size of a rugby ball.
- Why did Rabbits go back to the besieged apartment under the guise of a bandaged patient? The only reason would have been to take the diamond out, but he didn't. It turned out that he came only to leave.
- The conductor's wedding and concert were scheduled for the same time. He wouldn’t have been able to do both if he didn’t have a twin he didn’t even know about.
- Why did Rabbit go to conduct this concert? Didn't he just want to escape?
- How could a criminal boss and a famous conductor with the same faces not know about each other for a lifetime?
- Why did Rabbits go to his brother's wife? She didn’t know what was going on, but she did. He had no hatred for his brother to do that.
- Unfortunately, there are inappropriate jokes. Oleg Tabakov openly swears. The sign language interpreter portrayed Rotterdam in the most expected and boorish way.
- The price of a diamond is clearly exaggerated. Moreover, even if someone mined a diamond weighing for example a ton, it would collapse its own value, because its material would immediately cease to be rare. The whole point of precious stones and metals is that they are scarce.
- Why Garkalin has so many roles is understandable. But the fact that Vera Alentova plays the friends of all his incarnations – this can be seen only at the end, when it is already directly spoken about. Why this is done like this is not clear. The subject is undisclosed.
But it is a masterpiece of its time anyway. Noticeably good imitation of Soviet comedies: doubles refer to the "Gentlemen of luck" and "Ivan Vasilyevich", Krolikov's escape from the police resembles that of Miloslavsky, skillful tricksters returns us to "12 chairs" and "Deribasovskaya", theft of valuables, strange weddings, musical numbers - all this was somewhere in that old movie. At the same time, there is no direct copying anywhere, the plot is absolutely original and reflects the national idea of its time (alas, unlucky) that only a miracle can save Russia. Filmed qualitatively, tastefully, there are natural cityscapes, even military equipment.
We should especially mention Garkalin’s performance, it was absolutely brilliant. With two roles in one film at one time perfectly coped with Leonov and Yakovlev, but here is the interaction of three different themselves in many scenes – here the film and the actor certainly went to beat a kind of record. This was done at the highest level. This is certainly a triumph for the actor and editors.