Ostap Bendery-61 in modern reading In the murky wave of “free cinema” that swept over the Soviet audience in the post-perestroika period, it was difficult to find something truly worthwhile. The more noticeable are the films that, with a good and even excellent acting and an interesting plot, became life-affirming, and not smearing everything and all black paint and driving into depression and already cornered by the unexpected cataclysms of former Soviet citizens that fell on them on a global scale. “Menials” by George Shengelia is one of the few such “pearls in a dung heap”.
First of all, about acting. It is great, despite the fact that there are few actors and roles in the film. The work of V. Ilyin is beyond praise. A penetrating and at the same time constantly playing the drama of his life with a sincere tear, the mass-producer Babaskin in Menials is one of the best (if not the best) acting work in his filmography. And do not care about the little-known and unpromotedness of this picture. A. Ponomarev (chauffeur Zhora Grakin) soundly played his role - some mute (literally and figuratively) scenes in his performance take for the soul purely wordy monologues. The veteran of Soviet cinema Vadim Zakharchenko (a smart ancestor of the late Soviet cooperators Prokhora-bloodsuckers, as he was certified by Babaskin) has a short, but bright role - the good old Soviet acting school is immediately visible.
In the plot there is a comedy (main), and detective (chase, shooting), and dramatic, and lyrical lines. In fact, the basis of the plot is about a new (at least not indicated in the works of the classics) 401-m relatively honest method of seizing money from the population. In this sense, the heroes are the successors of Ostap Bender in the era of space flights and virgin development. The atmosphere of time is perfectly conveyed - bright, full of hopes, still clean 60s of the last century. The dark 90s made it clear - cheated, of course, and then, but it can be done without excessive meanness, rudeness and cynicism.
I would especially like to mention the music in the film (including “Lilac Fog”, inimitably performed by Ilyin’s hoarse voice). Music in "Menial" is a good third of the pluses of the film.
Well, the happy ending here is not annoying, but quite fits into the storyline of this bright and, in general, very kind film.