The Half Life of Timofey Berezin

AKA PU-239. A gem of a movie that deserves much more attention than (unfortunately) it's going to get. Honestly, I can't find any faults in this movie. OK, maybe, the mobster characters are a little bit over the top, but just a little, and it's a good thing. More entertaining. The script has obviously been written by someone who knows what he's talking about. Writing, acting, directing are all superb. It's the first intelligent "Russian" movie coming from Hollywood in ages. Too bad, not many people will see it due to the total lack of marketing from HBO. I got to watch it by accident while doing thoughtless channel flipping. Glad, I did.

I didn't have high expectations here. It was on cable, and relatively unknown. This wasn't a great movie, but it was good. I thought the character development was done well, the acting was good, and the plot was well, er, OK. I guess this was based on a short story, so it must have been troubling to develop this into a full length (almost) feature film. We used the familyometer on this one. My wife gave it a pass within 5 minutes, but my daughter and I gave it a shot. She really liked it, I liked it, and it didn't grab my wife at all. There was a very funny scene which I won't give details on which involved a scene where a Russian was commenting on all things American. He made obscure connections between several recognizable names in our culture, and really did a hack job of it, but it was one of the lighter moments. The heavier moments were dark, and sad. I would recommend seeing it. If you make it past the first 10 minutes, you will probably enjoy it as I did.

PU-239 is one of those movies where you find yourself without much to say about it. Paddy Considine, Oscar Isaac, Stephen Berkoff, and Radha Mitchell give decent performances and the film is not badly directed, but what cinema should do that PU-239 does not is leave you with a passionate reaction. I found that after having watched it, it was more like it was something on a list that I could check off and move on rather than an experience or an entertainment. It isn't even boring. It just doesn't reach. That's the reason why one feels so indifferent towards it. The plot is interesting:

Considine plays a family man who works at a top-secret, worryingly shabby plutonium plant in a Russian town after the fall of the Soviet Union, and he's exposed to radiation while trying to stop a malfunction. The facility's managers try to convince Considine and also themselves that his exposure was a survivable 100 REMs, while accusing him of sabotage and suspending him without pay, but his colleagues help him discover the truth, which is that he was exposed to ten times the amount of radiation that the managers maintained he had. It's stated by one character in the movie that people in Hiroshima were exposed to less.

So, with only days to live, and not letting his wife, played by Mitchell, know of his fate, Considine goes to Moscow. He hooks up with a small-time gangster, played by Isaac, who is in a great predicament himself, in hopes of finding someone to whom he can sell a vial of weapons-grade plutonium he has stolen from his plant so that he can send money back to his family to secure their future, though he states various times that his town is not on the map, which makes it unfeasible to send his letter home, much less any money. What's interesting about the dynamic between Considine and Isaac is that they never really form a bond, one being earnestly cooperative in his final days of life and one being frantic for his own interests to survive an almost as likely fate. Yet, they both have the interests of a wife and child in mind and have the same drive under those circumstances.

But the Russian mobsters are too cinematic for a story as real and historical as this one. They do things only Guy Ritchie, Quentin Tarantino, and David Mamet characters do, especially Isaac's boss, who delivers a silly, unrealistic monologue when he first appears that in reality would have his listeners lost.

This is not a bad film. It just minimizes the effect it could've had.

This movie was OK. It was not quite great, but interesting enough to be a bit above average. It starts out great, but then settles into a kind of blandness for the rest of the film.

Basically, the movie is about a man who is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation in a nuclear power plant in Russia. Knowing he is going to die soon, he absconds with a small amount of plutonium and attempts to sell it on the black market ... all to help provide for his family.

If the plot sounds interesting, the movie somehow drains the intensity out of it. The middle 90% of the movie is basically uneventful and focused on a slightly deranged mob-related fellow that the main character meets. More than anything, the movie depicts the degenerating state of affairs of two very different individuals who get linked up.

The movie is somewhat interesting and unusual, but I can't find a good reason to recommend it. If you end up watching it for a little while, just keep in mind, it won't get any better.

I don't know what it is this weekend, but I have tasted films from France (La Haine), Korea (Boksuneun naui geot), Canada (Eve and the Fire Horse), and now, Romania, albeit a US film. Three have revenge themes, two have multicultural themes, two deal with needed kidney transplants, and they all deal with family. There are many things in these films that make you want to think and think hard. Sure, there is also a lot of humor, but it never gets in the way of the themes.

Paddy Considine (The Bourne Ultimatum, Hot Fuzz) gets screwed big-time at work. He is exposed to 1000 rems of plutonium. He knows he only has days to live and his bosses are not interested in doing anything but covering their butts. Sound familiar? Anyway, he steals 100 grams of PU-236 to help his family.

At the same time, there are three low-level thugs who are also dying. They have 72 hours to pay off the big boss for their mistake. One of them, Shiv (Oscar Isaac) comes in contact with Timofey, and stumbles through a plan to solve both their problems.

A comedy of errors ensues with Shiv's partners, Jason Flemyng (The Red Violin, Transporter 2) and Jordan Long. These two are just about the dumbest thieves in the business and they get a fantastic high at the end that will have you rolling on the floor.

Comedy and tragedy mix well in Scott Z. Burns's (The Bourne Ultimatum, An Inconvenient Truth) film. It is a shame that it probably won't get a theatrical release.

And, it's a real treat to see Radha Mitchell (Silent Hill, Man on Fire).