Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Rhino: Ukrainian Godfather’ on VOD, A Thrilling Crime Drama with the Best Extended “Oner” Shot in Years

Although many individuals woke as much as the worldwide significance of Ukraine upon Russia’s 2022 invasion, the nation has a historical past far predating when the Western world collectively woke as much as the nation’s significance. A few of that’s on show in Oleh Sentsov’s Rhino: Ukrainian Godfather, a gangster story from the nation’s turbulent Nineteen Nineties. However essentially the most thrilling a part of that historical past within the movie shouldn’t be political, however private, as exemplified in a single breathtaking shot.

The Gist: Vova begins the movie as a younger youngster in Ukraine bullied for his obvious sensitivity, as seen by traipsing amongst sunflowers within the opening scene. However when pushed right into a nook, he reveals himself as a brutal fighter who can fend off assailants with a stick. In a single gorgeous take that by no means leaves the household dwelling areas, we watch him progress from boy to man. Particularly after he loses his brother to conflict, Vova bulks as much as change into the person of the home.

Derisively nicknamed Rhino by the mobsters who want his enforcement experience, Vova (Serhii Filimonov) will get let off the leash in ‘90s Ukraine. In a city filled with open criminality the place organized crime guidelines the roost, his band of employed enforcers wreaks violent mayhem at his behest wherever they go. He laments the best way his soiled deeds harden him and estrange him from his internal conscience. Vova’s automobile confessionals with a confidante reveal he has a honest soul and a powerful sense of his personal existence and objective, even when it’s largely expressed by way of brutality. Issues actually escalate when his household will get within the crosshairs of his enemies as he disappears right into a self-loathing vortex of carnage and carnality.

What Motion pictures Will It Remind You Of?: Consider gangster classics like GoodFellas with much more grime, grit, and gore.

Efficiency Price Watching: Serhii Filimonov, in what seems to be his first and up to now solely appearing credit score, completely instructions the display as Vova. It’s the imposing presence of his determine, positive, that remembers the best way Matthias Schoenaerts would possibly loom massive in a body. However there’s one thing extra to this gorgeous debut flip, maybe considerably pulled from his real-life contradictions. Filimonov displays a bone-deep sense of his character, each bodily and psychologically. The film is rooted in his means to tug off the violence and the vulnerability alike, and he nails it at both finish of the spectrum.

Memorable Dialogue: “You additionally suppose solely youngsters could be merciless, and then you definately develop up and see the adults are worse than the children,” Vova laments from the motive force’s seat. “And then you definately don’t even discover while you change into an grownup and that you simply change into dangerous your self.” It’s a style of the deep knowledge Vova can drop seemingly out of skinny air.

Intercourse and Pores and skin: There’s one pretty graphic, if temporary, lovemaking scene with Rhino pounding a bare-breasted mistress. However the pores and skin and intercourse abound in a bathhouse orgy scene filled with lascivious habits by Rhino and his gang.

Our Take: Any dialogue of Rhino has to incorporate its centerpiece “oner” shot, a powerful work of artistry unmatched by something I’ve seen in years. This single take alone is well worth the value of admission. In an period of flashy one-take pictures meant to attract consideration to its personal athleticism, what director Oleh Sentsov pulls off with cinematographer Bogumil Godfrejow is an ideal marriage of story and magnificence. The prolonged nature of the take doesn’t even blare its personal deserves at first, but it slowly picks up momentum because the digital camera floats round Vova’s childhood dwelling with out chopping. It quickly turns into evident that the digital camera is capturing huge expanses and ellipses of time relatively than only a strictly linear development. It’s solely about eight minutes lengthy, however it seems like a complete lifetime will go … as a result of it does.

The children develop up. They break the principles. They present their love. In a single poignant second, Vova’s brother Lyosha says farewell from the window as he goes to conflict, after which a fast pan across the room reveals the household crying over his physique in a casket. That is how time works. It seems to unfold repeatedly however is collapsing earlier than our very eyes. We can not discover tectonic plates shifting in our life till we blink and alter has out of the blue occurred. And the house is the locus of all of it, containing the reminiscence of all who go by way of it like a central mind.

That’s to not say that the remainder of the film isn’t good. Rhino is a really strong gangster film anchored within the fascinating, unconventional battle of its protagonist. However how, precisely, can you may have an entire hour-and-a-half of a film after such a showstopping shot? It’s inconceivable not to consider the brash bravura all all through. Possibly a lot in order that it papers over a few of how the movie runs out of fuel within the third act…

Our Name: STREAM IT! Rhino brings the style items and options one shot so breathtakingly good that you simply might need to face up and clap. These eight minutes is perhaps the perfect — or no less than the boldest and most progressive — you see for a very good whereas. But it surely’s additionally price watching the remainder of the film, too.

Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based freelance movie journalist. Along with Decider, his work has additionally appeared on Slashfilm, Slant, The Playlist and plenty of different shops. Some day quickly, everybody will notice how proper he’s about Spring Breakers.

Watch Rhino: Ukrainian Godfather on VOD