SPOILERS"If we can't buy Kreml we must become ourselves Kreml!"After seeing the disk in the neighborhood video-shop and every time passing it over I finally came to the point where nothing worthy of my attention was left to rent. So I grabbed this, out of desperation and rented it expecting something quite bad. Boy I couldn't be more wrong. Since the beginning I knew the stakes were high - a red writing in the middle of the screen announcing "the day of Platon's death" (the main character Platon Makovsky). Then a retrospection showing his rise to power. Constantly back and forth, then and now. An investigator has been arrived all the way from Ural to investigate Platon Makovski because obviously the whole issue is too delicate to be left to someone from the Moscow DA. Some very high government employees are involved, even the FSB (the former KGB) and Shmakov (the investigator from Ural) has the unpleasant job of interrogating the friend circle. But this is where all comes to light... "The rise to power" segments show how Makovski and his friends, young economics experts start to make money after the fall of the communist regime with the assistance of a georgian (that's Gruzia) who appears to be connected to some of the crime structures. This jolly group of university friends quickly learns how to use their brains in order to cheat the system to steal and basically get their hands on everything they possibly can and how to wash the money, with their first achievement of controlling the automobile factory in Tbillisi - Georgia. After this they go straight to the top. In personal aspect Platon gains a powerful and bitter enemy in the face of the party functionary Koretsky. As time passes they become real oligarkhs and billionaires and of course their enemies (who basically don't have anything personal against them but want a piece of the pie) become more and stronger until the bitter end. The movie has very strong cinematography, powerful editing, very beautiful music score and a great soundtrack. Wonderful dialogs, especially for Russian speaking people, I suppose in English some of the essence might be lost. Platon's 44th birthday is a godfather-esquire event - very large in scale, reminding me of the parties from "The great Gatsby". Great acting, especially from the supporting cast - Andrei Krasko as Shmakov and Levan Uchaneishvili as Larry are brilliant. Alexandr Baluyev as Koretsky, Maria Mironova as Masha and Vladimir Mashkov as Platon are also very good. The same things that can be said about the beginning are valid about the end - very powerful. Through the film goes on and on the question "who done it" but that's not particularly hard to guess... One downbeat moment towards the end - the little kids Platon and Musa - the kid-actors can't act at all and the scene itself was if not pointless really not needed. The movie is loosely based on Boris Abramovich Berezovski, who financed the rise of the Russian president Vladimir Putin (known to be a former colonel from the KGB). However after Putin became president he made clear that while Berezovski's money is welcome, he is not. The whole affair is known as "the godfather vs. Kreml" and Berezovski is living now in London in exile.-"Nedless to say, one of you has killed him" -"Has or hasn't... everybody wanted it..."

"Tycoon" may not succeed as a political film or piece of social criticism, but I don't think it was meant be those things. "Tycoon" was obviously meant to be first and foremost an interesting, entertaining crime drama, and on this count I think it succeeds marvelously. It has timeless themes: loyalty, betrayal, greed, envy, power, love, lust. To me the fact that it is based on the 1990's Russian oligarchs is almost secondary. It's more like a good war movie - the time and place is really just a setting, a backdrop used to tell a good story. The script is beautifully structured, the actors all give terrific performances, the direction is understated and confident. Unexpected things happen, scenes jump back and forth through time, and the pacing is excellent. Even though it's got the "a gangster's life" story arc (similar to The Godfather, Casino and the hugely overrated Scarface) in which the risks are taken, trusts made and broken, beautiful women seduced, liquor poured, bullets sprayed, etc., from scene to scene you aren't quite sure exactly who will do what. It holds your interest from beginning to end. No doubt there is a great documentary to be made about the rise and fall of the actual oligarchs or "New Russians", one which could tie together with great detail the entire true story. But "Tycoon" isn't that film, and I think it's arguable that it's better because if it.

To say this movie is bad is lending it too much credit. The writing and cinematography were atrocious, not to mention the amateurish acting that at times was so painful to watch that I walked away to answer a phone call and go to the bathroom - both more enjoyable.Do not watch this movie unless you're in need of a cure for insomnia. The ten line IMDb requirement is bad policy for bad movies since there's really not much to say about this travesty.There's a theory that a thousand chimpanzees sitting in a room full of typewriters could have come up with Shakespeare's masterpieces. I'll offer another theory: two chimps and a typewriter would stumble upon this story first with little effort and no editorial service.I hope something better comes out of Russia soon, or they'll be blacklisted from my DVD player.

Well, the good news is that this is definitely a very fun and entertaining piece of cinema. The bad news is that, like most movies with very few exceptions, it took a cool premise and failed short in delivering it. Storytelling needs a lot of polish, plot resolutions may seem dumb at times, and acting can range from very good to absolutely horrible from scene to scene and from actor to actor. There's very little that this "Russian Godfather" has to say that wasn't already said many times (and much better) in "Godfather", "Scarface", and "Once Upon a Time in America".None of that matters when it comes to the fun factor - unless of course you're one of those self-professed "critics" who spend more time ogling pretty ladies than following the story twists that are neither confusing nor overly complicated, or people who think that any movie that talks about a serious and controversial topic should be strictly unbiased documentary. Be neither, and don't take the movie too seriously.