Brother 2 received mostly positive reviews from critics, praising the acting, plot, setting, and soundtrack. The film is considered an integral part of Russian culture and has had a strong influence on the development of Russian cinema.[1][2]
After the interview, Kostya reveals that his twin brother, Dmitry, is an ice hockey player for the National Hockey League's Chicago Blackhawks and is being extorted by American kingpin Richard Mennis (Gary Houston). Kostya tells Danila that Mennis has come to Moscow to meet with the head of the bank Kostya works for, Valentin Belkin (Sergei Makovetsky), to discuss a business proposal. Later, Danila meets up and begins an affair with Irina. Meanwhile, Danila's brother Viktor, who has moved to live with their mother, makes his way to Moscow to meet Danila.
The next morning, Kostya approaches Belkin and pleads him to talk to Mennis about Dmitry. Belkin brings up Dmitry to Mennis, but the both decide that this is of little concern to them. Belkin instructs his assistants to "deal with" Konstantin so that he does not interfere and spoil his relationship with Mannis, but they, having misunderstood Belkin, kill Konstantin. That evening, Danila stops by Kostya's apartment to discover him shot dead and decides to help his twin brother.
Danila and Ilya begin planning their revenge. On the black market, they purchase a CD with personal information about Belkin and buy World War II-era weapons and a World War 2-era submachine gun and grenades from the black market. Meanwhile, Viktor has arrived in Moscow and manages to find Danila in the museum. He agrees to go to America with Danila and helps them steal a car.
Danila and Viktor make first contact with Belkin at an elite gymnasium where Belkin's son studies. Danila introduces himself as a new teacher and pulls Belkin aside to a private office for a discussion. There Danila interrogates Belkin at gunpoint, but he completely shifts the blame onto Mennis. He discloses that Mennis is involved in criminal operations including drug trafficking and snuff videos. Danila spares Belkin.
Later, Belkin warns Mennis, telling him about the incident with Danila, and sends him a photo. With the help of Ilya's friends, Danila and his brother secretly obtain foreign passports with visas. To avoid capture, the brothers fly to America separately, and Viktor arrives in Chicago without any suspicion. Danila instead takes a flight to New York City where he arrives in Brighton Beach. There, he buys a cheap car to travel to Chicago by road, but it breaks down just outside Pennsylvania. Stranded, he hitches a ride to Chicago with trucker Ben Johnson (Ray Toler). Danila arrives Chicago without a car, without a weapon and almost without money. There, he meets a Russian prostitute, Dasha, nicknamed Marilyn.
Back in Moscow, Belkin is still determined to catch Danila. Learning that Viktor was on board the flight to Chicago, he alerts the Ukrainian mafia there to find him. Meanwhile, Viktor arrives to the Ukrainian Village of Chicago and quickly begins to spend his money on entertainment. Danila attempts to meet up with Dmitry and Viktor, but is unable to make contact with both. Wanting to talk to Dasha, he goes to the neighborhood where she works, but ends up in detained by the police after getting into a fight with the pimp's men.
Having found Dmitry Gromov, Danila finds out the address of Mennis's office from him. Contacting Dasha, Danila asks her to arrange a meeting with an arms dealer. Using a homemade gun, he wounds the dealer in the face and steals a weapon. Then, in Dasha's apartment, he kills her pimp and the bandits accompanying him, who came to avenge the dealer. After this, Danila and Dasha finally meet Victor; sitting by the fire, the three discuss life - Dasha, without much enthusiasm, talks about her years spent in the USA; Danila suggests that Dasha fly home to Russia; Victor, on the contrary, admires America.
The next day, Danila first hits Mennis's front, a local club, and kills the guards there. Danila discovers that Mennis wasn't there, but the frightened director of the club gives Danila all the money from the safe and tells him where to find Mannis. Viktor picked up a tail by the Ukrainian mafia, draws them away and kills their hitman, but not before learning of the mafia's operations and headquarters.
The next morning, Danila reaches Mennis's office. Having killed the guards, he finally confronts Mennis. Danila returns the money he took to Dmitry, the brother of his deceased friend. Dmitry is reserved in his gratitude and starts talking about the accrued interest. Danila tells Dmitry that he is very similar to his brother.
Danila and Dasha take a taxi to the airport, but the car stops at a police line in the Ukrainian Village; one of the onlookers says that a certain Russian came to a Ukrainian restaurant and shot the local mafia. The police storm the building and drag Viktor out, and he joyfully shouts that he surrenders and wants to stay in America. Danila calls Ben and asks for help; Ben takes them to the airport in a limousine disguised as first-class passengers, dressed in expensive clothes. Danila and Dasha, who were deliberately late, manage to quickly go through the procedures and board a plane, which immediately flies to Moscow.
Belkin's car is a black Austrian Steyr 220 convertible from 1938. The blue Cadillac Coupe de Ville that Danila buys in the film was purchased by the film crew in New York for $1,000. The truck that Ben drives is a classic Peterbilt 379. During filming, the heavy truck was driven by actor Ray Toler himself, who later recalled this as the hardest role in his life.[5]
Before filming Danila's fight in the Chicago ghetto, Balabanov asked the two black actors to hit Bodrov harder so that everything would look natural. By accident, the actors broke two of Bodrov's ribs.[6]
In November 2017, Colta.ru published a long interview with Svetlana Bodrova, the widow of Sergei. According to her, television journalist and former colleague of Bodrov, Alexander Lyubimov, almost disrupted work on the film. Initially, the scene in which Bagrov comes with Ilya and Kostya to the Ostankino television center and then gives an interview was supposed to be filmed in the studio of the Vzglyad program. According to the script, Lyubimov was supposed to appear in it as a presenter, playing himself. He promised to help the filmmakers organize filming, but then unexpectedly refused to participate in the project the day before and did not provide them with a studio. Ultimately, it was decided to film the scene in the studio of the V mire lyudey program of the TV-6 channel with Ivan Demidov starring as the presenter.[7]
Soundtrack
The film's soundtrack consists of popular songs from contemporary Russian and Ukrainian rock artists, such as Splean, Bi-2, Zemfira, Smyslovye Gallyutsinatsii, Chicherina, Okean Elzy and Nautilus Pompilius. The pop-star Irina Saltykova being one of the important characters, there are some of her songs in the soundtrack. The latter is partly a reference to the soundtrack of the original Brother, which consists entirely of Nautilus Pompilius' songs. The soundtrack includes "Lafayette" performed by American band Sleeping For Sunrise.
"Бай-Бай" (Bye-Bye) — Irina Saltykova (O. Molchanov, A. Slavorosov)
"Иду" (I Am Going) — Tantsy minus (Vyacheslav Petkun)
"Земля" (Earth) — Masha i medvedi (Denis Petukhov, Maria Makarova)
"Lafayette" — Sleeping for Sunrise (Blake J. Zweig, James Konczyk, Jay Ranz)
"Погляд" (The Sight) — La-Mansh (Dmytro Tsyperdiuk)
"Прощальное письмо" (Farewell Letter) — Nautilus Pompilius and Children's Choir led by M. I. Slavkin (Vyacheslav Butusov, Dmitry Umetsky)
"Стюардесса Жанна" (Jeanne The Stewardess) — The Metropol Restaurant Orchestra (Vladimir Presnyakov Jr., Ilya Reznik, Aleksandr Starobinets)
Reception
Critical response
'When sequels start appearing, that's a healthy sign ... Two major risks have left Brother. Natural environment has gone - the alleys of Saint Petersburg, the bazaar on the Sennaya Square - a spot-on depiction of the new times. Only the story was left - honest, straightforward and not new, just like our hero. «Immorality» that served as the main attraction in Brother, paradoxically combining the frankness of Komsomol with zombie-like killings, is also gone. What's left is spirituality: the Orthodox values, «The power is not in the money, but in the truth», violence - not because it's as easy as brushing teeth, but because there's injustice in the world - and thus one must fight ... A strong movie, not boring to watch. Aleksei Balabanov makes films the only way possible: like we are living in a healthy country that produces 150 movies yearly. And while it's not true, and there's a clean field around him, and he is taken almost for a savior who carries his cross alone, we should react to this film adequately: calmly, without hysterics, just like a normal cinema requires.'[8]
'Our answer to James Bond and other "anti-Soviet Cinema",’ “Brother 2” was ‘ideological...playing ‘to the fears of its national audience...the first manifestation of Russia's new snobbery towards the US,’ the Itogi weekly's reviewer wrote. Its central character was ‘a) cute and b) clever ... war creates a special kind of childish killers ... The search for national identity ... only leads to unwarranted xenophobia.'[9]
The film was criticised for being too Russo-centric and in extreme cases the elements of racism and nationalism. For example, the semi-criminal portrayal of the African American community, the deceiving Russian-American Jew (who sells a bad car) and the Ukrainian mafia. The latter criticism in particular often refers to the toilet scene when Viktor finishes off his opponents in cold blood remarking: "You bitches will answer to me for Sevastopol!" referring to the sensitive topic on the ownership of that city. Ukrainians are also called banderovets by Viktor (e.g. when he arrives at the airport), which does not appear in English subtitles. Albeit those scenes have clear humorous overtones.[citation needed]
After the release of Brother 2, Balabanov said in an interview that he refused to film a third film, believing that the story of Danila Bagrov had outlived its usefulness, and it was necessary to move in a new direction.[11][12] Bodrov later took up directing and was not interested in reprising the role. However, he did not completely rule out the possibility.[13]
Yet later on he hinted at a possible third part while answering a comment on the official Brother website which suggested to "send Danila to the Second Chechen War and kill him".[14] Apparently in 2002 he released War where Bodrov played a supporting role of Captain Medvedev.
In 2001, Bodrov directed a criminal drama entitled Sisters which was compared by critics to Balabanov's dilogy.[15][16] Bodrov himself appeared in an episodic role of a nameless New Russian — according to Bodrov himself, a cameo of his Bagrov character.[17]
In 2014, Viktor Sukhorukov announced his desire to make Brother 3 and dedicate it to the memory of Balabanov and Bodrov. He said that he had long planned the sequel and was full of ideas for the new story which had been rejected by Balabanov during his lifetime, including Viktor being broken out of an American prison by Mexicans and returning to St. Petersburg in an oil trawler.[18]
In 2019, it was reported in Russian media that musician and showman Stanislav Baretsky was planning to shoot Brother 3 with a completely new crew and cast, including ex-prisoners.[19][20][21] This caused a negative reaction from fans, Bodrov's relatives, Viktor Sukhorukov, Irina Saltykova, and CTB producer Sergei Selyanov who stated that his company would never give film rights to Baretsky and that they might sue Baretsky at one point.[22][23][24]
In 2021, Valery Pereverzev [ru] began filming Brother 3. Despite the name, it is not related with Balabanov's films.[25] In June 2022, Pereverzev said that Baretsky's idea turned out to be a "dastardly fake" that got out of control, which confused many about who was making the film.[26] In response, in November 2023, Baretsky criticized Pereverzev's film idea, saying that it was impossible to film the third part of the brother without the participation of Bodrov. At the same time, Baretsky noted that he further plans to film Zhmurki-2, and did not further mention his idea for Brother 3.[27]
Legacy
The video game Cyberpunk 2077 contains direct references to the film; namely, Bagrov's monologue in Mennis's office.[28]
Literature
Florian Weinhold (2013), Path of Blood: The Post-Soviet Gangster, His Mistress and Their Others in Aleksei Balabanov's Genre Films, Reaverlands Books: North Charleston, SC: pp. 66–90.
Susan Larsen (2003), "National Identity, Cultural Authority, and the Post-Soviet Blockbuster: Nikita Mikhalkov and Aleksei Balabanov." Slavic Review, vol. 62, No. 3, pp. 491–511.
^Хохрякова, Светлана (2014-09-30). "В чем сила "Брата-2"?". Новости России и мира - Новостной портал Московский Комсомолец - МК (in Russian). Archived from the original on 2014-11-02. Retrieved 2024-05-07.
