The fight against the untouchable The eleventh season of the already famous series, the show of which stretched for two years. Part of the season was shown in the fall of 2017, and the final part of the season the audience had to wait for almost a year. In this season, there is a change of heroes and new ones appear in the foreground. For health reasons, Jackson is out of the series. Lieutenant Colonel Shilov now heads the Criminal Investigation Department and several departments are under his command, where Shilov is trying to persuade Arnautov to join the murder department, and then push Oleg Klimov. As is known from the description, Ilya Petrovich Kazakov is appointed in his place, who is the personification of the “Kuban” cop. Along with Shilov, he becomes the main character from Shilov’s team, which largely pushed Klimov and Arnautov to the background. In my opinion, the plot of Kazakov, despite some comic, in general shows the specifics of the Kuban and St. Petersburg mentality of operatives, and Andrei Bilanov copes with his role and the scriptwriters in principle managed to reveal and show the change of a straightforward slasher in operational work, in a more flexible and prudent, who is forced to understand that not all means are good in the fight against crime.
The game of Alexei Ustyugov in this season remains worthy, as in previous seasons, so the storyline with Roman Georgievich in the series, as well as his game turned out to be quite interesting. Here Shilov becomes a more cautious player in the fight against “untouchable” deputies and senior officers, who become the main antagonists in this part and does not rush to “ambrasure”, and in his struggle he has to go around it, becoming a diplomat. The trials that have fallen to his lot even force him to compromise with the antagonists, who, as always, put a stick in his investigations.
As in previous seasons, the main antagonist appears, which becomes the new head of the Investigative Committee, appointed in Moscow - General Nikulin, who, under the protection of his father, becomes him at the age of thirty. Tied in criminal cases and abuse of power, he directly puts his hands in the affairs of Peter.
This film consisted of four separate films, where you can briefly give them an analysis.
Film one. "The vertical of powerlessness." Despite the typical plot plot, the interest is the increased authority and status of Shilov in his new position, which in the fight against the system, encounters resistance in the form of an attempt of large-scale harassment in the media, as well as a conversation Shilov and the head of the USB Permyakov about the corrupt vertical of power in modern Russia. In many ways, Shilov's play in this film helps to positively assess the weak script of the film.
Movie two. "Right to kill." This series begins with the murder of a deputy who established a patriotic youth society “Children of Heroes”, which consists of young guys who want to fight in the Donbas. Colleagues in this movement are trying to call on the authorities to arrest the delivery of pizza, a native of Ukraine, because they consider him guilty of murder. The plot, despite the urgency of the problem in relation to Ukraine and Russia and related to the ensuing political events of recent years, create on the one hand, a catchy plot of the persecution of the Ukrainian. At the same time, the screenwriters rather weakly prescribed the character of the characters more like the so-called primitive “vatniks” with leavened patriotism, and the frankly played behavior of these characters leaves the impression of a flaw in the script.
Film three. "Untouchables." The relevance of the plot affects Internet bloggers and their activities in exposing the identity and activities of those in power, which is a reference to the activities of FBK. Despite the interesting idea, the authors again “cooked” a clearly weak and simplified plot with the blogger and deputy Kerimov, especially the obvious lack of professionalism and outright amateurism of the deputy’s henchmen, who do not understand how they can get responsible tasks. This storyline turned out to be crumpled and the denouement turned out to be frankly ordinary. The writers did not pay enough attention to this storyline. It was much more interesting to watch the story of the raider seizure of Lenspirt, where a more interesting and consistently revealed plot about the atrocities of the law enforcement system. Also, the epic ending of the plot about what makes impunity for the untouchables this makes the plot of the film less worthy.
Film four. "Power and Law." The final film received a flurry of criticism, for too long and poorly developing plot. This is especially true for the first half of the film. This is largely due to the fact that there is a lot of attention paid to the work of operatives, and the actions of the criminal side were hidden, which is characteristic of the traditional plot scheme of the series. As a result, the film lacked the inherent dynamics of the plot, which was filled with a lot of dialogue and the complexity of the plot itself. Only in the second half of the story becomes more clear and dynamic. The disadvantage is the weak play of secondary characters.
In conclusion, we can say that this season is clearly inferior in quality to previous seasons. The main advantages were that allowed the series to retain a certain interest, so it is the acting of the main characters, as well as an attempt to touch on topical topics of Russian life. Shilov’s new level of authority leads to the investigation of cases related to personalities and relations between senior officials and other civil servants. In the center of the plot was the struggle with the highest state officials, including their grown children, who more cynically and brazenly seize and crush everything they want, revelling in the breadth of their powers and the right to use laws solely for their own benefit, while these sons lose even the instinct of self-preservation. It reveals the third and fourth film. The main idea of the creators of the storyline of the films can still be identified. It was also nice to hear the songs of Alexander Ustyugov inserted into the theme. Although not all musical inserts were successfully suitable for the plots.
The disadvantages of this season is an unreasonable approach to the development of the script, where some plots are frankly superficial and poorly written. This is despite the fact that the season was stretched in the show for two years. It would be possible to pay more attention and create a more interesting plot for the actual problems of Russia, the material for which is enough, because the country is corrupted to the bottom. Such flaws are very striking and spoil the overall impression of the current picture, especially against the background of previous seasons.
6.5 out of 10