Wonderful Movie

Best movie ever!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This movie shows, with a gentle and objective lens, how patetic Americans can be in ordinary matters. Rasist, cowardly, interested only in money, shallow, arrogant. Yet, this movie is subtle enough so that Amuricans, while insulted, would not exactly get the point as they are typically challenged. That is both emotionally and intellectually. A brilliant portrayal of contemporary Amurica shows how, in any moral universe with any grain of objectivity, Amuricans, for the most part, are beneath Russian "mobsters" aka ordinary Russian people. Yet, this gentle movie shows that some Amuricans, like sincere truck drivers or even some career obsessed minorities have some trace of humanity deeply buried beneath the shallow and dis figuring facade. Almost prohibited in Amurica for its sincere portrayal of parallels of Russia at its most impoverished and America at its peek (which has since long passed), shows the superb advantage of moral over shiny emptiness, truth over money, as brilliantly demonstrated in a scene with a petrified american businessman (attempting to play chess, a russian national sport, and drink vodka, a cruel joke as, muricans are more apt at checkers and are too much of snowy cornflakes for vodka) aka low covardly life of average corporate Joe, who is allowed to live by cute Russian avenger but shows much less digg nitty than his Russian, also spared, counterpart. This true face of Amurica is revealed as much nastier deep down than in any slumm worldwide, even more now than at its peek when this movie was made. The movie consists from two parts, one set in Russia, and other in America, with parallel business practices, celebrity cultures, even taxi drivers. Despite the sympathy shown by the brilliant director, Amurica does come much worse off than Russia, but better than it deserves. Amurican snowy cornflakes are shedding water from their eyes to this very day when seeing this masterpiece, trying to mum even objective reviews but they are not nearly deb nunked enough in their delusions, and that is the only, ever so slightly, fault of this movie.

This movie is perhaps one of the highest regarded movies among Russians. Mere criticism of it brings out ultra-nationalistic hatred unlike anything you've ever seen. It does not surprise me that snippets of this movie posted on youtube elicit multitude of comments like: "F..k Americans" or "F..k Jews" or "F..k n....rs" etc., strewn around comments lamenting the untimely death of the actor.Imagine "American History X" shown to an audience of xenophobes, racists, and white supremacists WITH all of it's redeeming context taken out (e.g. punishment, lesson, redemption). What you're left with is a glamorization of this animal, criminal mindset. Brat 2, while being nowhere near "American History X" in any of it's aspects, manages to inspire and ignite ultra-nationalistic youth of Russia, even today.I found it impossible to care for these thugs, no matter how "nice" the anti-hero main character was portrayed. He's certainly no "Leon" from Luc Besson's "The Professional (or "Leon")".There are very few groups of people this movie managed to avoid insulting. While painting a stereotypical imagery of America/Americans, it also portrayed your stereotypical Russian punk that grows into a murderous thug. An image easy to embrace for many propaganda-fed simpletons that this movie was aimed at. Offered a "hero" for them that's easy to embrace and digest. A xenophobic, racist, criminal, alcoholic, thug with no regard for the law or basic human decency.I was watching the movie, expecting some secret revelation, some deep meaning, something other than action sequences tied with lame dialog, self-important soundtrack and body count to rival Arnie in "Commando". However, all I found was an insult of not just everyone that was obviously insulted... but Russian people as well. Don't waste your time on this movie.

I have read all comments and realised that not many western people got the message from the film. Probably that was because film's poor subtitles or translation and lack information or knowledge about real life in Russia and post Soviet countries. Maybe following explanation will help to clear couple of things.Firstly Danila went to America not because of money but for revenge of his very close friend with whom he was in the army and was killed by Russian gangsters who misunderstood an order of their boss. Russian mobster was not killed because Danila liked his son.Secondly film try to show that like in Russsia in America there are a lot of good and bad people and their nationality and race does not matter.In my opinion Brat 2 is about life and life is different. You can not make opinion about people because of their nationality or race. In this film Danila speaks his mind and his opinion of other people is based on what they do not on what he thinks about or what other people think about them. If people are bastards he will treat them in the way appropriate way if not he will treat them as well in the appropriate way. This film is not about bad Americans and good Russians it is about life.

I was amused by American reviews of the "Brat-2".Americans were taken by surprise: how dare those Russians to make a film that depicts Americans as evil gangsters? How dare Danila to shoot Americans? This is not politically correct! It was clearly assumed that Russians are always the bad guys, whose only role in any film is cannon fodder to be shot by American Rambo.Now "Brat-2" arrives, uncovering the horrifying truth: the bad guys are Americans! And it is OK to shoot them.After years of Hollywood films depicting Russians as bad asses (no single Hollywood film showing Russians at least from a neutral point of view), the Russian cinema finally strikes back.This movie delivered a long-awaited entertainment for Russian viewers.It also proved complete lack of sense of humor of American viewers.