WHY DON’T YOU JUST DIE! (PAPA, SDOKHNI’)

(director/writer: Kirill Sokorov; cinematographer: Dmitriy Ulyukaev; editor: Kirill Sokorov; music: Vadim QP, Sergey Solovyov; cast: Vitaliy Khaev (Andrey Gennadievitch), Aleksandr Kuznetsov (Matvey), Evgeniya Kregzhde (Olya), Mikhail Gorevoy (Yevgenich), Elena Shevchenko (Tasha); Runtime: 100; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Sofiko Kiknavelidze; White Mirror Film Company; 2018-Russia)

“It plays like a Looney Tunes cartoon gone bloody and psycho.“

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

The Russian title means Daddy, die!. The 29-year-old Russian filmmaker Kirill Sokorov’s feature debut is an absurdly funny but sicko action-packed allegory.The non-linear pic reverberates with a clever sardonic Russian humor, much bloodshed and a nasty take on Putin’s corrupt Russia could be read into the not too subtle narrative. It’s a nihilistic film, one that delights in turning things over and creating shock. It was inspired in large part by the 1990s pulp films of Quentin Tarantino.

The action occurs in the small Moscow hi-rise apartment of the fifty-something, hefty, overbearing, corrupt detective Andrey (Vitaliy Khaev) and his obedient wife Tasha (Elena Shevchenko).The jittery twentysomething petty thief Matvei (Aleksandr Kuznetsov), dressed in a Batman t-shirt, rings the bell while concealing a hammer. He plans to use the tool to kill the father of his actress girlfriend Olya (Evgeniya Kregzhde) for sexually abusing her as a child. He’s doing this as a favor for Olya, who requested it. She also told him dad keeps a large stash of money in the apartment, which motivates the boyfriend’s criminal impulses. When invited in by the cop he drops the hammer and accepts the offer of a cup of tea. But soon the father and the boyfriend are fighting, as dad doesn’t like the idea of him fucking his daughter. This over-the-top sequence blends violence together with slapstick comedy.

Meantime numerous flashbacks fill us in on the backstories involving Matvei, Olya and Andrei’s police partner Evgenie (Mikhail Gorevoy). Also of an earlier blackmail pact between the crooked cops allowing a deranged sex killer to escape jail, an incident that turned tragic.

We await the arrival of Olya and Evgenie, and with their appearance the mayhem will intensify and come to a brutal conclusion by the apartment’s elevator entrance.

It plays like a Looney Tunes cartoon gone bloody and psycho, and is primed to be a cult fave.

REVIEWED ON 10/3/2019       GRADE:  B+  
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