"Centaur" - a psychological thriller with Yura Borisov turned out to be too uneven, but there is something in it
Miscellaneous / / July 17, 2023
Hollywood movies in a Russian taxi are interesting to watch.
On July 13, the premiere of the film "Centaur" took place. A rather diverse team worked on the film: director Kirill Kemnitz (Zombie Vacation), screenwriter Mikhail Zubko ("Happy End", "Mosgaz"), cameraman Robert Sarukhanyan ("Epidemic"), composer Dasha Charusha ("Hardcore"). Well, the producer was Ilya Naishuller ("Hardcore", "Nobody"). The budget of "Centaur" is 110 million rubles.
Starring Yura Borisov ("Captain Volkonogov fled", "Silver Skates"), Anastasia Talyzina ("Delo", "Vladivostok"), Grigory Vernik ("Lucy").
Sasha works as a taxi driver. One night, a prostitute gets into his car and after the first trip asks him to take her on calls. She is afraid, because in the city under the guise of a taxi driver maniackilling girls.
Good psychological thriller
After watching "Centaur" is very easy to divide into two parts. The first 75-80 minutes is a psychological thriller, the remaining time is a standard action movie.
And when "Centaur" works on the principles of a psychological thriller, it looks pretty good.
Not always successful dialogues do not destroy the atmosphere of fear, keeping the expectation of an approaching catastrophe (even if the viewer does not know what exactly will happen, but something is pecking). Gloom, night, lights, neon lights - a strong nod to the side neo-noir not only recognizable, but frankly happy.
As for the plot twists in the first half of the film, they are very soft and neat. The absence of abrupt changes contributes to the pressure of the atmosphere. The intrigue declared at the beginning remains. Sometimes the thriller breaks into drama, reminiscent of Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth. And it seems that "Centaur" is a great movie, but then something inexplicable happens.
Unintelligible final scenes
"Centaur" changes so much at the end that it becomes unrecognizable. The thriller turns into an action movie, and a terrible one at that. The neat spin-off of paranoia collapses in just a couple of scenes. Speaking without spoilers, the scriptwriters take a good psychological thriller and throw it at the wall with all their might - for the sake of "spectacular" chases and gunfights. There is nothing worse than suspense, which is broken for the sake of "bang-bang" and other "vzh-zh-zh".
If most of the "Centaur" in spirit resembles "stringer”, then the ending is too similar to Scooby-Doo. Imagine that at the end of the film "Lock" Tom Hardy gets out of the car to kick the kitten - that's how suddenly and stupidly the "Centaur" changes.
Such a sharp change of tone not only gives the viewer a stupid ending, but also makes it clear that all previous events are just tools of manipulation. That is, there were no mysterious characters and riddles. This depreciation greatly spoils the impression of the first, successful part of the picture.
Such different acting talents
One of the main reasons why Centaur works like a psychological thriller is Yura Borisov. This is another brilliant performance of the actor, the only embarrassing thing is that almost all of his characters are the same. But this does not negate his talent, and in the "Centaur" Borisov is in his place. Nervous, creepy, tragic - he switches moods so naturally that they do not feel any falsehood. And Anastasia Talyzina constantly sits next to him, who, in general, corresponds to Borisov (but her character is much simpler).
And then Wernick shows up. «Fandorin. Azazel”,“ Lucy ”,“ Kept women ”- Grigory Vernik is the same everywhere, regardless of his character. So in "Centaur" he drags antics and replays. A kind of Joker, but without makeup, and even in the wrong place: imagine that someone is parodying Jared Leto in line at Pyaterochka, and then you will get emotions from Wernick's performance.
He articulates unnaturally, twitches, portrays a hysterical voice - and introduces into the film an element of youthful childishness in the school theater. It would look bad in any picture, but when he makes faces next to Borisov, it becomes completely awkward.
Hollywood cinema for the Russian audience
Ilya Naishuller is one of the few Russian directors who is trying to make honest mass cinema. Just a quality attraction without pretensions to high art and social criticism. "Centaur" fits into this logic. Here is a thriller, here is a drama, here is an action movie - they mixed it up, added good music, caught up with the horror and you're done.
And it looks like it should work. But the Russian film market is a little crazy - it’s not without reason that films in Russia Lars von Trier collect more than in conditional France or Germany. And Russian genre cinema is always a lottery, they rarely and reluctantly go to it (you can collect a dozen and a half exceptions in a couple of decades). In this sense, it is interesting to know how much Centaur will collect at the box office - is it possible that another good genre film will not pay off simply because it is domestic?
"Centaur" skillfully entertains for more than an hour, which in itself is not bad. Everything that happens afterwards devalues the beginning of the picture somewhat. Hence the strange feelings after watching - as if someone ruined the party, which he organized so well.
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