"Blood for Blood" is equipped with the pretentious subtitle "this film was shot during the political events of 1991." But don’t expect this movie to create a metaphorical mix of what’s really happening on the street with the movie. The plot is typical of commercial cinema of the time. Before us pretty mutated police film about impeccable (okay, almost flawless) guards of the law and their antagonists, which are deduced as quite modern types of robbers in a large way, not considering the fact that they rob the heroes of the Great Patriotic War; small hucksters, prostitutes and gays. The film uninhibited and approximately hypernaturalistically presents the deviant bottom of the breathing incense of the Soviet world, which is destroyed literally before our eyes, but it is necessary to catch criminals. Such an honest (okay, almost honest) hero is played by Fatyushin, who at that time often starred in films of very medium and just small caliber. He plays his hero convincingly that the film still does not save, since he is conjunctured and fashioned as if hastily. It is difficult to talk about psychology here: such a genre involves types, and there are many of them here. But several times when watching there is a feeling of awkwardness for what is happening. For example, why would a great actor Gluzsky play an absolutely small role that does not reveal his talent? Why, showing in the frame almost inevitable for mass cinema of that time bed scene, it is necessary to put in bed Fatyushin with Alferova (both actors, frankly, not the first youth), especially since this scene is filmed in the spirit and entourage of a cheap erotic almanac? Why hint at possible intersections in the past of the main positive and main negative characters (by the way, Boris Galkin plays him very convincingly, then a similar type will disperse across all the Brigades and Antikillers simply on an industrial scale), if they are not fully disclosed.
All this and much more makes us treat the film as extremely characteristic of its time, that is, having no special qualitative and stylistic signs.
If it weren't for one but. Realizing that this is a director’s improvisation, it can be noted that now the film is not interested in the plot (and not so later filmed), but documentary footage of what is happening on the streets of Moscow. This nerve of the era was partly transferred to the plot itself, but still an organic and convincing artistic result did not work out.
One more question. Why is it called Blood for Blood? It is typical for “ravenge” films, but in this case it looks absolutely “rolling”, ridiculous, crowning an already dubious film work, shot for the rash of the day, but more in order to recoup the plot.
5 out of 10