Best movie of this year hands down!

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

one of comedies who preserves the flavor of a period. and reflects the sensitivity of a generation. so, it is not only a comedy but a trip in Soviet every day reality. the inspired cast, the smart use of clichés, the gags and, more important, the chaos are the best ingredients for create a lesson about the East under Communism. a film who explores situations for a fresh image of social situations. a comedy who has the gift to do different picture of a regime , using irony and the clichés , desires and nuances. a film who remains lovely decade by decade. and that fact is the basic virtue of film. so, a classic. in a special sense.

It's the mostly liked by the several generations of the Russian people comedy of Leonid Gaidai together with 'Operatsiya Y' and 'Kavkazskaya plennitsa', full of light irony and brilliant folksy humor of the late soviet time. The performance of the main actors (Andrei Mironov, Yuri Nikulin and Anatoli Papanov) is absolutely superb. Perhaps though it's not much appreciated amongst some high-minded intellectuals, which have their own cinema.

This movie was never intended for foreign audiences. It is simply way too Russian (or too Soviet, actually) to be funny for anyone not familiar with the realities of local life. Most of the real comedy comes from Mironov and Papanov, who play hilarious villains on the track to recover stolen jewels, mistakenly put into Nikulin's arm cast. Russian-speaking audiences will enjoy Papanov's one-of-a-kind "Ukrainian" accent, but the jokes are too ethnic for anyone else to understand. Nikulin (a circus clown turned great comic actor) isn't particularly believable in an unfamiliar role of a good guy (his characters usually also were drunken and hilarious crooks), but turns in an adequate performance. Mironov is at his usual fast-talking, silly self, and Papanov is a riot. Mordyukova steals several scenes in a small role of a house superintendant, a towering woman with a thunderous voice. Overall, a terrific Soviet comedy, the kind they simply don't make anymore.

Simply the BEST Russian comedy.