As someone who was in Russia at the time of MMM's rise and fall, I was excited to hear about this movie.
Unfortunately, although it was interesting in parts and couldn't fail to be exciting, PyraMMMid never really discovered what it wanted to be. Was this a political drama? Was it going to be a Russian response to Wall Street focusing on the relationship between the young assistant and his wily mentor? Was it an absurd comedy/farce about an insignificant professor that invents his own currency and threatens to bring a government down?
Equally, I was a little disappointed that the production did not really evoke the character of the time. Unfortunately, everything in the movie was just too shiny, the actors too fashionably dressed and the score overpoweringly melodramatic. Goodbye Lenin, The Lives of Others, the Carlos (the Jackal) miniseries and the Baader-Meinhof Complex movies were all pitch-perfect in recreating the look and feel of their period through decor, wardrobe, hairstyles. The Brigada TV series did a good job of it too.
With the exception of perhaps the music (Bogdan Titomir and Agata Kristi - but where were the Scorpions and Duran Duran who were also played constantly?), PyraMMMid didn't get it right: the early scene in the lawyer's office was on point but the later scenes of construction in which dozens of workers furiously build out a huge open plan space filled with ceiling-hung televisions and phone lines was completely unrealistic (believe me - we tried!). This is most striking when actual archive footage is inserted into the movie - the people in the footage and the actors are obviously decades apart.
Unfortunately, although it was interesting in parts and couldn't fail to be exciting, PyraMMMid never really discovered what it wanted to be. Was this a political drama? Was it going to be a Russian response to Wall Street focusing on the relationship between the young assistant and his wily mentor? Was it an absurd comedy/farce about an insignificant professor that invents his own currency and threatens to bring a government down?
Equally, I was a little disappointed that the production did not really evoke the character of the time. Unfortunately, everything in the movie was just too shiny, the actors too fashionably dressed and the score overpoweringly melodramatic. Goodbye Lenin, The Lives of Others, the Carlos (the Jackal) miniseries and the Baader-Meinhof Complex movies were all pitch-perfect in recreating the look and feel of their period through decor, wardrobe, hairstyles. The Brigada TV series did a good job of it too.
With the exception of perhaps the music (Bogdan Titomir and Agata Kristi - but where were the Scorpions and Duran Duran who were also played constantly?), PyraMMMid didn't get it right: the early scene in the lawyer's office was on point but the later scenes of construction in which dozens of workers furiously build out a huge open plan space filled with ceiling-hung televisions and phone lines was completely unrealistic (believe me - we tried!). This is most striking when actual archive footage is inserted into the movie - the people in the footage and the actors are obviously decades apart.
