It’s scary to think, but Sergei Bodrov, Jr. has not been with us for almost 13 years. Now there is no particular reason: the anniversary of the death of Sergey Sergeyevich is still far away (September 20, 2002) and his birthday (December 27, 1971) too.
But does one need a reason to recall a wonderful actor and a wonderful person. Of course not. As well as no reason is needed to review films with his participation.
To understand the movie "Brother 2", you must first watch "Brother". Since the two main characters remained the same Victor Bagrov and Danila Bagrov. They were played, respectively, by Viktor Sukhorukov (actor “Brother 2”) and Sergey Bodrov.
The plot of "Brother"
The time of events is the 90s of the 20th century. Russia. Returning to a small provincial town with military service, Danila cannot find a job and, at the insistence of his mother, goes to Peter to his brother Victor. “He’s a big man there,” says the mother.
Danila goes to St. Petersburg, wanders about him for a while, then finds his brother. Viktor himself in St. Petersburg is really a respected person - he is a killer in the service of various organized crime groups (Organized Crime Groups). And he just received a good, but very dangerous order for one criminal authority. He quickly finds out if Danila has military experience, and whether he knows how to handle weapons. He jokes off and says that in the war he was a clerk at the headquarters. One way or another, Danila takes up the work that the older brother was originally supposed to do. Victor pays Danila “generously” 10% of the money that he received.
In the future, Victor all the time uses Danila as a “lifesaver” for himself in not too pleasant affairs and situations. D. Bagrov deals with his brother’s problems clearly, quickly and ruthlessly, in the best traditions of the dashing Russian 90s of the 20th century.
At the end of the film, he eliminates his brother’s main enemy, guessing that Victor was setting him up all the time. In one of the final frames of the film, he gives his brother money and sends him home to his mother.
The image of Danila Bagrova
But Dania (Sergey Bodrov - actor of "Brother 2") is not only a "killing machine." He has a friend Hoffmann (Yuri Kuznetsov) and a friend of the World (Svetlana Pismichenko). In friendly and loving relationships, as well as in the final forgiveness of the brother, a serious humane, truly human principle in nature of Danila Bagrov is traced.
"Brother 2". Plot
In this film, the brothers Danila and Victor change places: now D. Bagrov is an important person in Moscow, and V. Bagrov is a policeman in a provincial town, and his mother sends him to his brother in Moscow.
The plot is now not built around the fraternal relations of Victor and Dani, the support and structure is served by a "morally" morally and financially story with the twin brother of one of D. Bagrov's military friends - Konstantin Gromov (Alexander Dyachenko - actor "Brother 2") . His twin brother, an overseas NHL hockey player Dmitry Gromov (Alexander Dyachenko), signed a contract according to which Manis takes all the money for himself - an American businessman (Gary Houston). According to Kostya, he is going to talk with the director of the bank, where he serves as a guard, Valentin Belkin, so that he somehow influences the American. Kostya wants to free his brother from the captivity of contract bondage. But V. Belkin (Sergey Makovetsky, actor of “Brother 2”), instead of influencing the American, puts pressure on Kostya, so much so that they kill him without calculating his strength.
Naturally, Danila takes the whole story very personally and visits V. Belkin with the intention to first find out the details about Manis and then kill him, but departs from the plan outlined in advance and leaves the director of the bank alive (it hurts well his little son reads verses about the Fatherland in a sonorous voice. )
Then everything is no longer so interesting, because in the film "Brother 2", the actors play it frame-by-frame a scene from a typical American action movie. Viktor Bagrov goes into the shadows, turns into a comic character, and Danila - the Russian "Rambo" - is entering the stage. First, he makes his enemies throughout America, then heroically gets out of a difficult situation, sparing no one and killing everyone. Of course, he returned the money to the brother of his deceased friend, but he seemed to be not happy with such a happy ending for him. Sergei Bodrov plays in this film a kind of "God from the car" of the Greek tragedy. The strange thing is that in the film "Brother 2", his actors agreed to play an American action movie in the Russian cover.
The image of Danila Bagrova in "Brother 2"
Danila in his later version became much worse than himself young. Previously (in the first “Brother”) he was, although cruel, but humane, real, lively. Everyone could recognize him, because these guys were rich in Russian reality of the 90s of the 20th century. He had a homeless drunk friend, he loved an ordinary girl working as a tram driver.
When Dania moved to Moscow, and the 00th arrived, he changed dramatically. A whole team was found that equipped him in America. In the United States, he made a showdown in the spirit of the heroes of Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Van Damme. But if in the conditions of Russian reality of the 90s it looked organically and appropriate and even new (it seems that no one had made such films before), then when Danila came to the USA, he lost his originality, became one-dimensional, just like the heroes of the above "icons" of fighters. In America, such escapades do not surprise anyone. The character "Danila Bagrov" became flat because he had lost his "Russianness." There was nothing Russian left in it, except for the phrase: "Strength in truth." Summing up, we can say that in the film "Brother 2" the actors and roles do not correspond to each other. The actors are good, famous, and the roles are not too deep.
However, the stories of the brothers became part of the gold fund of Russian cinema. A.O. Balabanov sensitively caught the main, significant trends of the time and skillfully embodied them in his dilogy. Finally - the actors of the movie "Brother 2" list (only the main characters):
- Danila Bagrov - Sergey Bodrov;
- Victor Bagrov - Victor Sukhorukov;
- Valentin Belkin - Sergey Makovetsky;
- Kirill Pirogov - Ilya Setevoy;
- Konstantin and Dmitry Gromov - Alexander Dyachenko
- Gary Houston - Manis.