TYCOON
Directed by: Pavel Lounguine.
Produced by: Catherine Dussart & Vladimir Grigoriev.
Written by: Alexandre Borodianski, Lounguine, & Yuli Dubov, based on the novel The Big Slice by Dubov.
Director of Photography: Alexey Fedorov & Oleg Dobronravov.
Edited by: Sophie Brunet.
Music by: Leonid Diesyatnikov.
Released by: New Yorker.
Country of Origin: Russia. 128 min. Not Rated.
With: Vladimir Mashkov.

Tycoon follows the rise and fall of a self-made power broker, made rich through dubious business deals. Moving backwards and forwards in time over the course of 15 years (in which the actors’ hairstyles change, but hardly age) the film follows Platon (Mahkov) from his student days in the communist USSR to his sudden transformation into a shady car-importer turned media mogul in capitalist Russia. Determined to be successful at all costs, he becomes the object of the government’s animosity as tensions and plots break out among his consortium, which includes college chums and his childhood friend Moussa (whose friendship is tardily explained at the film’s end). A melodrama stuffed with too many ill-defined relationships, Tycoon packs in one convoluted plot too many, playing out like a Russian version of “Who Shot J.R.,” except the characters are so thinly written that you don’t love to hate Platon and the plots against him seem unmotivated. However, those who have followed Russian current events may have an easier grasp of the film’s backstory. With his hair slicked back (movie shorthand for sleazy) Mahkov undoubtedly has charisma to burn, and there are humorous scenes of an unknown Siberian bumpkin being groomed by Platon for national candidacy, but there is little else to hold interest here. KT
June 13, 2003