Bummer (2003)

Bumer is frequently hailed as perhaps one of the best Russian movies in decades. This might be a capsule evaluation of dubious tendencies in the entire Russian cinema. Once this is the best ever, then which could have been the worst?

Four young culprits of distinctively felonious appearance expropriate a luxury BMW car (of the title that stands for the slangy reference to this Bavarian vehicle, Russian version of Bimmer) and flee to nowhere with no particular aim in view.

Sometimes it looks like Russia splits into two different never overlapping worlds. A regular person, not necessarily representing upper strata of society, from one ("normal") world may, luckily, never stumble across the harsh realities constantly experienced by the persons from the other ("warped") world.

And somehow cinema (most of the contemporary Russian movies in particular) may reflect such explicit division.

It might be either a glossy showcase of heroic typecast of characters or, otherwise a depiction of stereotypic brutal crooks (or minor variations) stewing in their own juice. The golden mean is regretfully rarely seen in our cinema nowadays.

Some may say Bumer is unbelievably sincere and truthful, to the bones, in portrayal of horrors of our everyday life (or the wrong side of life).

Violent robberies and rampant extortion elsewhere on the roads, corrupt law enforcement system, brutal shootouts and bloodshed between the gangs, lost generation - is this all real and does this exist? Undeniably - yes.

Oh, did I forget terrible motorways impassable to that overpraised miracle of German engineering?

But if the sole target of the producers of the film is the desire to persuade us that such horrible world with not a single positive hero in the vicinity really exists and, moreover, THIS IS OUR REALITY - well this isn't something that needs any more proofs. We've seen this all before and we are all well aware that life is full of crap.

The direction is unexceptional and uneven at times. So is the yarn - an overlong and a kind of leisurely road trip with incidental clashes of our intrepid quartet against their colleagues in the other side of the law, or with angry truck drivers, or with militia. It has an overdose of flashbacks and ridiculous sprinkles of casual romantic liaisons.

The dialog is mostly unconvincing and preposterous blend of rather tame foul language and pseudo-criminal folklore.

Acting of the leads is decent at best, but I wonder who might be caring about the motives of the four half-witted laddies desperately floundering atop of the big bunch of muck they have devised for their own amusement: - just to keep themselves absorbed in shoveling their way through this mess to find the fate they actually deserve.

And if anyone may, however, feel attracted to the trivial speculations on the issues of loyalty and betrayal (among that specific layer of the society) allegedly offered by the film - my humble opinion might easily be disregarded.

Fmovies: In many comments this film is compared to 'Brigada' - a Russian gang-type TV series, but to me it's rather a Russian version of Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs'... The similarities are striking, the number of main characters(all criminals), the plot, the slang, continuous throughout the movie reminiscences by main characters to the beginning of the story, the ending(almost cloned)... Certainly 'Bumer' is a Russian movie with emphasis on many peculiarities of nowadays Russia's life and I honor it as a masterpiece of it's own, and I really enjoyed it, but inadvertently comparing to the Tarantino's movie(which is a great film by all means) it's hard to ignore many weaknesses of 'Bumer', most of all - the actors' work.

great movie if you want to get Bumer go to Google/Google Video Search for Bumer it should be on there... if anything feel free to contact me at mafiosnik86@gmail.com very simple at the same time very sophisticated :) i saw it for the first time a few years back when it first came out i myself am Russian i hope to see a lot of Americans watch this film i think they would really like it a lot of my friends have seen it and I'm planning to definitely see Bymer 2 which is already out on DVD so check it out! i don't know whats wrong with this site...but the whole Minimum of ten Lines gotta go minimum should be 5 lines

Bummer fmovies. This is a brilliant Russian movie. Great and very realistic plot (lots of cursing, deaths), awesome music (both Ruissan hip-hop and Mahler), good actors(including the star from "Brigada". But the best thing is that this movie realistically displays modern Russia - crooked cops, gangs on every corner, a step to anarchy...

Debut movie from Piotr Buslov, yesterday's student and now acclaimed as "Russian Tarantino". The film is mystic criminal drama but also totally awesome portrait of modern Russia. Heroes is four men, a bunch of outlaws, try to escape from Moscow to a little out-of-the-way place. They kill one rude boy from another gang (actually he is an under cover cop) and want to hide from manhunt. They car, BMW 750 that they stole from foreign businessman have a bad karma and problems get started. This is the story of retribution and men's friendship with outstanding actor's plaing, great casting and original gangsters slang. Many Russian people does not understand some phrases of heroes at all. The director's cameo in the middle of the film is true genius: he is very decisive as racketeer's boss in scene on a gas station. Forget all another post-soviet Russian gangster-flicks, this is the one that you waiting for. As a parallel just imagine "Reservoir Dogs" meets "Easy Rider".

Bimmer's the Russian term for the BMW, and with such a title, the vehicle has to be a plot device in the movie.

The film begins with the stealing of a BMW 7-series by a gang of four petty thieves. Given that it's such a wonderful car, they decide to keep it for themselves instead of selling it off. But before the film reaches cruising speed, a confrontation with another gang goes wrong, and our quartet is on the run from both the cops and from the mob.

So they're off on a road trip in their ill gotten BMW, and scene after scene, we're treated to set pieces, like encounters with a gang of truckers, corrupt cops and a doctor in a small town. Some of these scenes are hilarious, watching our quartet outsmarting and wriggling their way out of situations, while others are sometimes plain boring. So it's rather uneven.

Despite the title being a car model, there is absolutely no car chases in this film, which is a pity, otherwise we could have seen the 7-series being put to good use. However, what's refreshing is the scenery. I haven't seen much of Moscow or Russia, and this film offered an opportunity to do so.

It also attempts to explore the relationships between the friends, to see if there is indeed honour amongst thieves at a time when it really would have counted. The ending is kinda unexpected, but all the more makes you wonder about the this theme.

With an excellent soundtrack each time the Bimmer is driven, you'll forgive this show for some of its shortfalls.