Putin

I expected a movie about Putin to be bad, but I didn't think it would be this bad. It's neither a neutral biography nor a compelling drama-it's neither. The film can't decide whether it wants to be propaganda or a critical piece, and the result is a confusing mess that's both dull and pointless.

The acting is lifeless, the script is shallow, and the cinematography is a complete disappointment. Putin's character is either portrayed as an artificial hero or a cliché villain, both of which feel unrealistic and insulting to the audience's intelligence.

To be honest, I don't like Putin, but I disliked this movie even more. If it aims to be propaganda, it fails; if it tries to be critical, it fails again. It's unclear what it even wants to say. One of the worst biographical films I've ever seen-maybe the worst. Even a 1/10 would be generous.

The clever non-linear timeline of fresh, original political biopic "Putin" flashes back in bite-sized chunks over key chapters in the life of the titular Russian President (professional lookalike Slawomir Sabala) - including his childhood, the Soviet Union's collapse when he was a KGB operative in Germany, his ruthless (and murderous) political rise to the office of President Yeltsin (Tomasz Dedek) that he then took, and his tightening grip on Russia via false-flag terrorist attacks on his own people, etc... culminating in the war on Ukraine. Polish writer / director Patryk Vega uses plenty of artistic license to highlight Putin's evil - but it works. An engaging & enlightening film.

Just basically a giant sigma edit of how awesome and powerful Putin is. Which hides behind being smart and edgy. Truly a main character of modern world. The only thing missing was Drive Forever playing on the background throughout the movie. Vega actually believes that Putin is Russian John Wick, going around doing whatever he wants being an unstoppable relentless force. And he actually is victorious in the end, destroying the world and dying with a little coy smile on his face. And no amount of references to Orwell will get you back from that. I wanted to throw up while I watched it, literally.

I somehow made it to the end holding on to hope that Vega is just trying to show us how cringe is this belief that Putin is actually the sigma worldchanger, but no, it is he who believes that and the film is just cringe. I'm actually disgusted to write a review for this piece of garbage, but I'm hoping to save someone from watching it for themselves. Please, I'm begging you don't.

First off, after watching this flick and wanting the time back to do something productive with it, I decided to check out reviews knowing how polarized they and the up/down votes would be. I wasn't disappointed. Some single-review users are even begging the FBI (the American Stasi) to investigate and charge anyone who leaves the movie a bad review, as if all of us are in the US and subject to its laws (I guess Julian Assange would have something to say there).

The film is just a terrible biopic with all the usual western narrative infused background information on V V Putin's life, his career in the Soviet version of the FBI (no, not quite their CIA as it was also concerned with domestic spying) and his rise to power after the demise of the Soviet Union.

There is zero nuance, as it's a full-scale and unprovoked invasion of the viewer's psyche designed to further propagandize the masses and paint foreign "dictators" as the real threat to our so-called freedom and democracy in the collective west. The way the character (and all of them, really) is portrayed is just completely one-sided and worse still, unbelievable. The production is also amateur all around. I normally find something to compliment a moviemaker about, but here we have shoddy camera work, terrible framing and lighting, the sound is awful, the soundtrack could come straight from a Red Scare era propaganda film, and the acting is out of this world bad.

Think about that for a second - this movie has ZERO redeeming qualities. If they had made a well shot, professionally produced and - most importantly competently written and acted - movie, I could have appreciated it on its technical and artistic merits. But alas there is absolutely nothing positive to say about this, and what's worse is it will obviously fail to gain interest or engage viewers for the producers' intended effect - villainizing an already comically hyper-villainized Russian autocrat in whose real-life orbit even more villainous people exist. Honestly, I could have probably achieved at least a 4 star film with just the script, but these guys failed miserably and they have clearly employed the services of a troll army to downvote every honest negative review.

Avoid this. Read Putin's Wikipedia page instead.

Putin is a brilliantly bad "movie." Seriously, it takes a lot of talent to pull this off. I truly believe that the creators did a gargantuan job to make absolutely everything in this movie dumb, laughable and disconcerting. Like Scary Movie, but with the bonus of parasitizing on the tragedy of the Ukrainian people. As a cherry on top, the hard drive with the final cut was pissed on to give the film that artsy yellow filter. I won't dignify this incoherent garbage with analyzing any more of its features, because I've wasted enough time on it already.

In a distant future, we may live to see not only a handful of serious biopics about Putin, but also a new Armando Ianucci who will bring us the work similar to The Death of Stalin. But not now. Now, we only have Patryk Vega, the most hated filmmaker of Poland, and his abomination that will, God willing, shortly descend into obscurity. Make no mistake, it's not "so bad it's good" or a guilty pleasure, it's just guilty.