Andrei
Gennadievitch is a Russian cop, but he is nothing like Arkady Renko in Martin Cruz Smith’s
novels or Inspector Rostnikov from Stuart Kaminsky’s mystery series.
Gennadievitch is a big bull of a man, but he is a thoroughly corrupt, shameless
excuse for a human being. He is not the sort of person you want to tangle with,
but the hapless Matvei will try to kill him anyway. A whole lot of bloody
mayhem will ensue in director-screenwriter Kirill Sokolov’s Why Don’t You
Just Die!, which releases today on VOD (theatrical distribution planned for
earlier in the month was cancelled due to the CCP-virus, so forward all your
complaints to Xi Jinping in Beijing).
Poor
Matvei has been played rather badly by his girlfriend, Olya. Her father is a
thug with a badge, but her allegations of sexual abuse were pure fabrication. She
wound-up Matvei and sent him off after her father, armed only with a hammer. He
wasn’t expecting Olya’s emotionally-deadened mother to be home as well, but she
is. Nevertheless, he and Gennadievitch are soon engaged in vicious combat,
using as weapons whatever they might find throughout the apartment.
Inevitably,
Gennadievitch gains the upper hand, but Matvei keeps bouncing back. The title
definitely refers to him. However, more people will get involved in the madness
when Gennadievitch invites over his daughter for answers and Yevgenich (the
partner he double-crossed) to help clean-up the mess. Instead, the wreckage
just gets messier.
Although
WDYJD is not explicitly political, it might just be the perfect representation
of police work and criminal justice as it is currently practiced in Putin’s
Russian tsardom. Corruption begets violence, which begets even more escalating
violence. Press materials make the old Tarantino comparison, but watching the
film gives us a hunch Sokolov has inhaled plenty of Takashi Miike as well. He
has an eye for absurdly disgusting details, but more importantly, there is a
dark logic to the way it all unfolds.
Nobody
will ever mistake this film for Shakespeare’s Henry cycle, but the cast
still impresses, especially as they become increasingly blood-splattered. As
Gennadievitch, Vitaliy Khaev resembles a Tor Johnson with acting talent, whereas
Aleksandr Kuznetsov could be the hammer-wielding analog of Ewan McGregor in the
original Trainspotting. Plus, Evgeniya Kregzhde makes a spectacularly
stone-cold femme fatale as Olya.
Aside
from a few flashbacks, WDYJD is largely confined to Gennadievitch’s flat,
but you could never adapt it for the stage, because the voluminous blood would
have the cast sliding into the front row. There is no question a dark sense of humor is required to enjoy the
film, but if you have it, Sokolov delivers the laughs in crimson-red spades. It
definitely the work of a bold stylist. Highly recommended for cult film fans, Why
Don’t You Just Die! releases today (4/20) on VOD platforms, including
iTunes.