Brother

'Brother' dir. Aleksei Balabanov, 1997

This flm atruck me as similar to something like "The Godfather" but in Russia and with a ton less gore (which I am totally fine with). There's quite a bit of action invovled but in the end nothing is really resolved. I guess now would be a good time to mention that gangster movies aren't my favorite genre, though I have seen a few of them thanks to my brother. I was actually really glad that there wasn't a ton of blood and stuff in this movie, even though it was about the mob.

At first I thought the actor was using his real name, but the last name of the character is just really similar. He seemed like a halfway decent guy, except for the whole shooting nails into people with a sawed-off shotgun thing - cause he would let the innocent people go instead of shooting them too for "knowing too much" or whatever. He also made a point to use his power to help the good people who were being harrassed, like the guy on the bus and his German friend. I think he was more of a believeable person than some of the guys in those Godfather movies. I think the army probably hardened him to the effect of violence and made him good as a mobster. He didn't really show much emotion for most of the movie. I think the music helped him to get away from what was happening to him and provided an escape for his emotion. He was the most excited in the concert scene. It also literally saved his life when the other hitman shot him in the walkman, but it just broke and he was OK. He doesn't seem to like foreigners at all, but having been in the army and in a war, I suppose that would make sense that tha foreigner is seen as an enemy.

I wonder what the mom thought Viktor was really up to in St. Petersburg. She seemed so proud of him, I'm sure she didn't know what he was really up to. If she had, I bet she would have thought better of Danny for going into the army. I didn't really get why she was so disapproving of him. Or the whole opening sequence, either. He just walked through a video set and someone beat him up? It seemed a little random. I guess the significant part of it was that he said he didn't want to be a cop. I wonder if that's because there was so much corruption in this time - but then he goes on instead to be a mobster.

I don't know why his brother would have turned him in, unless it was just a situation to save his own butt - I'm never good at following who's who in these movies. I thought it was weird too how the other gang guy called Viktor a "Tatar" but Danny didn't look Asian at all and yet they were supposed to be brothers. I thought Chechnya was interesting too, because I'd heard about it before but never knew where it was or anything. t's actually a relatively small area near Georgia and I think that its kind of weird that Russia would fight so hard to keep a small area, when bigger pieces like Georgia and Ukraine and all of those "-stan" countries ended up breaking off and becoming independent after the fall of the USSR. Maybe that hadn't quite happened yet, at this point? Or those were territories that had been previously independent and annexed by the USSR, or something? I don't know. It just seems weird to me.

I think that's all I have right now, apologies if it didn't all quite make sense, I'm on some meds for this super cold.