Interceptor   Starring: Vasily Golovachev, Andrey Chubchenko, Lev Prygunov, Lubov Tolkalina, Tina Kandelaki and Vladimir Vdovichenkov Optimum Home Entertainment RRP: £15.99 OPTD1749 Certificate: 15 Available 22 February 2010

Having been betrayed by his partner and left for dead on a doomed plane, following the loss of a psychic weapon, Special Forces agent Matvey Sobolev miraculously survives a fatal plunge to earth only to be discovered by some locals. Going to ground Sobolev engages in his rural idyll until he discovers that his partner is planning to use the weapon, moreover the celestial brotherhood of time-shifting Angels believe that he is the warrior which will protect human kind...

Interceptor (Zapreshchennaya realnost, 2009 - 1 hr, 29 min, 27 sec) is a fantasy film directed by Konstantin Maximov.

There has been a real resurgence of the Russian cinema and though, unfortunately, in the west we have only really seen the fantasy output, here is an industry that is really finding its own voice.

I would love to tell you about a well constructed narrative, the deep and meaningful human story, however, I’m not really sure what was the thinking behind this film. Are we looking at a David Lynch Dune, which only makes sense to those that have read the book? Or is it more like The Matrix where the meaning is often so obtuse that only the initiated will ready understand what the hell is going on?

The real problem with the film is that it is visually stunning but makes very little sense. I never really cared what happened to the central character, I’m not even sure I understood what was happening to him. That’s not to say that the film is anything but visually stunning, having the same FX people who worked on Night Watch, one of my favourite films, but even to a diehard FX junky like me you have to have a story to hang the whole thing on.

Having such a distance from the film makes it difficult to say if the cast were acting well as I didn’t understand what it was they were trying to convey.

Okay, this all sound very negative, but there is no denying that the film is a visual feast, can I keep saying this? t’s not that the film is impenetrable, but so little time is spent in building up the characters it’s a bit like only paying partial attention to a partially good film only to find yourself wondering, at the end, what the hell it was all about.

The best description of the plot is that stuff happens, and then more stuff happens, then really interesting stuff happens. The film stars Vasily Golovachev, Andrey Chubchenko, Lev Prygunon, Lubov Tolkalina, Tina Kandelakia and Vladimir Vdovichenkov.

The disc is as good as a DVD gets, sorry I’ve been very spoilt by Blu-ray and I would be tempted to buy the film in this medium just for the special effects.

As an assault on Hollywood the disc is a poor neighbour. You get either Russian 2.0 - why do they bother putting these thing in - or a fairly flaccid 5.1. Honestly, if they want to put another one out hire me to mix the sound, I have ears. There is little in the way of extras apart for the original theatrical trailer (2 min, 05 sec).

This is a great film, if you understand it, but for the average audience this is pretty impenetrable.

6

Charles Packer