Tueur à gages (1998)

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1. 

   CinemaDump

   Almaty, Kazakhstan is not the place to be if you're looking to strike it rich. Tueur à gages is set in what was once Kazakhstan's capital and director Darezhan Omirbaev makes it clear that the region is severely depressed. Only 6 years removed from declaring independence from Soviet Russia, the people seem to simply accept their glum reality.
   
   Putting a desperate character in an impossible situation easily makes for an interesting movie. Main character Marat has his back against the wall and Omirbaev only uses 80 minutes to tell his story. It feels right though, there's just no time wasted on needless scenes.
   
   Marat (Talgat Assetov) has a job as a chauffeur. He's married and his wife has just given birth. A moment of inattentiveness while driving causes him to crash into the back of a flagship Mercedes-Benz, with him clearly being at fault. Marat doesn't protest at all. Instead, he relies on shady characters to front him the money at high interest rates which inevitably will cause trouble down the road.
   
   Talgat Assetov plays Marat as a man who just accepts his fate. He hits the Benz and agrees right away with the other driver that he is to blame.

   He goes through several beatings as well and it can be pretty much assumed that he took them without too much of a fight. That's because Omirbaev likes to utilize jump cuts so you never actually see Marat getting beaten up. You just see him calmly cleaning himself up and moving on.

   
   
   Tueur à gages is trimmed of any kind of cinematic fat. It's grey, cold and hopeless. There's no film score and Omirbaev takes his time, letting his camera linger at the right times. There's no attempt at dressing this film up, it just it what it is. Tueur à gages is never especially tense but I don't think that was the intention. As a viewer you're just left empty.
   
   This is Omirbaev's third full-length effort and it was worthy of a Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes which is to encourage young talent. Tueur à gages is amazing in the way that it can garner a response with such simple production. I really doubt that there was much of a crew filming this but it looks so much better than its humble origins. It definitely deserves a bigger audience than it has had over its lifetime.
   
   7/10 9 years 10 months ago
2. 

   nbats

   https://video28.0xdb.org/0157124/96p1.webm
   https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/search/sublanguageid-all/imdbid-157124
   Play subs with VLC or Penguin. 3 years 3 months ago

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