Lavrenty Beria is one of the odious people of the XX century. The story of his triumph and fall in 1953 is in itself appealing. Of course, one can argue for a long time whether he was a tyrant, whose conscience was the death of Stalin, or a victim of the struggle for power between the followers of the Leader. In his series "The Hunt for Beria" (which is the third season of "Alexander's Garden") Alexei Pimanov chooses the first option, and therefore the main characters Alexei Kazarin (Dmitriy Zhulin) and Vladlen Rings Alexander Makogon will confront the all-powerful Beria (Vyacheslav Grishechkin), who conceived, in the event of coming to power, to get rid of General Shapilin (Valery Zhakov) and his family.
Compared to the second season, “The Hunt for Beria” came out much more interesting. If before everything was built on a detective with the participation of melodrama, then here is an adventure film based on real events. In any case, do not take it as historical. For example, the recently released Pimanov series Zhukov, which also gives a reconstruction of the events of June 1953, is much more true than this. I think it turned out to be a great action film, reminiscent of the Three Musketeers by A. Dumas. Not a masterpiece, of course, but it looks interesting.
As for the image of the main antagonist of the series - Lavrenty Beria, I believe that Vyacheslav Grishechkin coped with his task. Given that such a comedic actor has a very serious dramatic role (Gryshechkin was previously associated with Starokon from the TV series “Soldiers”), it was pleasant to watch him. Let the actor Vladimir Shcherbakov look more like Lavrentiy Pavlovich – Vyacheslav still made every effort to achieve similarity. Otherwise, how to explain that in the future Grishechkin will again play this role in other projects (“Contrigra”, “The Legend of Furtseva”, “Comrade Stalin”, etc.)
The main roles were not played either. Even Alexander Makogon, who in the film “Three Days in Odessa” (from the cycle “Alexander’s Garden”) was with a stone face, is more emancipated here. Although it also resembles James Bond - invincible in hand-to-hand combat, aptly shooting scout. I also really liked the convincing and memorable game: Eduard Florov in the role of Garayev, Andrei Gusev, who once again played in the cinema cycle “Alexander Garden” by Vasily Stalin.
It's much worse with women. Unfortunately, the images of Tanya (Ksenia Kuznetsova) and Vera (Yulia Pozhidaeva) were not fully disclosed, so I can not say anything good about their acting. Glafira Tarkhanov (Maia Koltsova) was in principle convincing in her role. But only tense that her heroine, being in a position, too often worried about the life of her husband. If it weren’t for the pregnancy, everything would be fine. It makes her miserable. Iya Ninidze was very good. Outwardly, of course, Nina Beria has little in common, but the actress, even with the available small scenes, was able to very vividly, accurately and convincingly convey the image, character, behavior, attitude of her heroine. The strength of her character, courage, devotion no matter what, self-esteem, real breed and beauty.
From an artistic point of view, the series is not bad and looks with interest, despite the blunders and unnaturalness of some scenes. For example, the escape of Shapilin with his daughter from the hospital looked a little naive. But, despite all this, "Hunting Beria" turned out to be a good completion of the cynocycle "Alexander Garden'.
8 out of 10