Tycoon - A New Russian
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Mariya Mironova Vladimir MashkovBrand: NYF
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Russian (Original Language), Unknown
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 128 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-06-29
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: New Yorker
Movie Reviews of Tycoon - A New Russian
Movie Review: Gritty insight into 1990s Russia
Summary: 5 Stars
Other reviewers have covered the essential plot points, the essence being the rise and tribulations of Platon Markovsky. Platon is actually a far more sympathetic character than any real-life plutocrat because he's using his wits rather than old KGB connections and, until just before the end, he doesn't assassinate anyone in the pursuit of riches. The viewer can therefore sympathize with Platon in a way that would be improbable if we were watching a documentary on the rise of Boris Berezovsky, for example.
There are too many excellent cinamatographic moments to list; one of my favorites repeatedly occurs in the last quarter of the movie where a grinning picture of Boris Yeltsin (then Russia's alcoholic president) smiles down on corrupt bureaucrat-gangsters as they vivisect the State in pursuit of enormous gains. When the cat is asleep (in this case, in a drunken stupor) the mice will play dirty games indeed.
For someone learning Russian and therefore not utilizing subtitles, it will help to have a native speaker available or a really good dictionary of contemporary slang. For example, it took me a little while to discover that "laveh" (spelled love, with the stress on the last syllable) is slang for money in a way that is equivalent to the British English "dosh" or the French "butin" but which has no real equivalent in American English. It was also enlightening to discover that Russian has a specific word for "slow agonizing death," namely podihat.
Platon's progress is somewhat akin to that of the emponymous Candide in Voltaire's novel: the journey is interesting but its main artistic purpose is to shed light on the society that creates such circumstances. Just as Candide was a bitter criticism of Europe, so Tycoon is a deep and painful criticism of Russia in the 1990s. Of course it's sad to note that since then things have become even more brutal and cynical, with the current President clearly doing everything possible to recreate Tzarist Russia with himself in the role of Tzar (a word which, incidentally, derives from the Roman Caesar).
If you have any interest in understanding contemporary Russia there are many worse ways to do it than spending an enjoyable nearly-3 hours watching this excellent movie.
Summary of Tycoon - A New Russian
A stylish, slick crime drama based on the life of notorious billionaire Boris Berezovsky, TYCOON follows the life of Plato Makovski ,a renegade Russian entrepeneur whose seductive and brutal climb to the top in the post-Soviet era flourishes as the line between business, crime and politics breaks down.Opening with Plato?s assassination by car bomb, An investigation Judge of his life through flashbacks involving a vivid array of gangsters, mistresses, childhood friends, idealistic intellectuals, and trigger-happy veterans, offers an inside view of a country in which gangsters and greedy politicians conspire to rub out their enemies.
Building a media empire, Plato uses his genius to become a monster, unhesitatingly sacrificing his ideals and his closest friends until he topples.
Compared by critics to SCARFACE and THE GODFATHER SAGA, TYCOON is an epic tale of a visionary and scoundrel, and, in the end, a bridge between the old Russia and the new.
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