"Hardcore" (film): reviews, genre, actors, plot

To date, the world leaders in the creation of militants are Americans. Russian cinema, which only a few decades ago began to master this genre, while it is not easy to create paintings worthy of competing with American blockbusters. However, recently on the screens came the Russian fiction thriller "Hardcore." The film in 2015 was designed to be a unique project worthy of representing Russia in the global film market. However, did the picture achieve its goal?

The Hardcore Film Festival 2015

This project became the debut work of the young Russian director Ilya Naishuller.

In 2013, Ilya made a video for the band Biting Elbows using the GoPro camera. This video quickly gained popularity on the Internet and interested Timur Bekmambetov. Through social networks he contacted Ilya and offered to shoot a full-length film in a similar style.

Encouraged by the suggestion of the master of the cinema, Naishuller wrote a script that Bekmambetov liked, and he began to produce the project.

Although the producer himself did not intervene in the filming process, giving the young filmmaker the opportunity to film himself, it was his name that attracted the attention of the sponsors, so it often happens that it is a film by Timur Bekmambetov.

"Hardcore" was removed from the first person, so it is very similar to the computer game a la Doom, Stalker, etc.

The budget picture was $ 2 million. At the box office, the tape was able to collect seven times more. However, the Americans recognized Hardcore Henry (under this name, he was going to the US) a failure picture, because she failed to repel 10 million, for which they bought from Russians the right to hire.

The plot of the film "Hardcore"

Someone Henry, whose eyes viewers see the whole picture, comes to himself in some laboratory. He does not remember anything about his past. However, the woman who cares for him, says that her name is Estelle and they were previously married. After his death, she transported him to Russia (only here are allowed experiments to revitalize the dead flesh) and with the help of somebody's money, Akana was able to resurrect.

The hero lacks most of the organs, including the arm, leg and part of the face. All this was replaced by high-tech prostheses, but Estelle did not have time to install the voice module, so Henry can not speak.

While the wife tries to bring her husband-cyborg into a normal state, Akan bursts into the laboratory. He turns out to be a maniac, dreaming to conquer the world. It was for this that he funded the work of Estelle, so that she helped him out of the corpses of soldiers to create an army of obedient cyborgs.

Akan is straightened out with laboratory workers, but Estelle and Henry manage to escape. Later they are found by the soldiers of Akane and kidnap a woman. The protagonist, they think him dead, throw.

However, the cyborg manages to escape. Now his only desire is to save Estelle, but how? Unexpectedly, Henry finds a certain Jimmy. It turns out that he also worked for Akane, until he broke his spine. The man managed to escape and create biorobots. Unlike the cyborgs developed by Estelle, they do not have consciousness, but they are completely made up of human flesh. With the help of equipment, Jimmy paralyzes into them and can live many lives at once, like a full-fledged person. In this case, the disabled person is obsessed with the desire to take revenge on Akan, for which he wants to use Henry.

Together with Jimmy, the hero manages to track the asylum of a maniac, but the inventor and all his hypostases perish in the process.

Finding Acana, the hero learns that he was just an experiment. In addition, Estelle is not his wife, she just used this lie to check what he is prepared for her. Now, convincing every super-soldier of Akane that she is his wife, this woman can actually command this army.

By inciting Henry to cyborgs, Estelle and Akan celebrate the victory. But the hero remembers his true past, and this gives him strength. He is straightened out and with super soldiers, and with people who deceived him.

At the end of the movie "Hardcore" the main character receives a message from the already deceased Jimmy, who says that he has a job for Henry.

main characters

In the center of the plot is an unknown person named Henry, randomly chosen for the experiment by Estelle and Akan. Due to the fact that his real memories are blocked, he himself is not able to understand who he really is. Even before the end does not understand themselves, Henry rushes to save his beloved. For her sake, he risks his life many times and kills an entire army of enemies. However, after defeating all the enemies, the hero remains alone, and how he will continue to live is incomprehensible, because all who could help him died, and the charge of his battery is not infinite.

Estelle first creates the impression of a brave and faithful wife, ready for the sake of love, even to raise her husband from the dead. It is this care that makes the main character act. However, in the final it turns out that Estelle is really a faithful wife, that's just not Henry. The dynamic plot of the Hardcore tape does not provide an opportunity to better understand the motivation of the heroine. After all, until the end it remains unclear: she did all this only out of pure love for Akan, because of the passion of the scientist or because of the desire for world domination.

Jimmy is the most ambiguous character. He was able to overcome the trauma. His artificial bodies allowed him to live a full life, only the thirst for revenge played a fatal role. After contacting Henry, he planned to use it for his own purposes, but Akan outwitted him. It is at the moment of mortal danger that the hero's noble features manifest themselves: he sacrifices himself to help a friend whom Henry became for him.

Akan is the main antagonist of the film "Hardcore." The film in 2015 shows the viewer of a traditional maniac with a thirst for world domination. This hero was not born like everyone else. In addition to the absence of melanin (he is an albino), Akan is able to kill others with telekinesis. Perhaps, it was these features that influenced the formation of the idea of ruling the world. This hero is the classical embodiment of the psychotype of the superman Nietzsche.

Particular attention should be paid to Henry's father. This is the only real memory of the hero. At the beginning of the picture, it seems that he was a cruel sadist, degrading his son. And only at the end it turns out that this man himself in his childhood experienced the mockery of his parent, but managed to remain a man, and treated his son quite differently, and helped and supported him. The father became for Henry that straw, which helped him stay, when all of him betrayed and left.

Genre and problems of motion pictures

"Hardcore" - while the only full-length tape, completely removed from the first person. That is why it is very difficult to determine its genre. The creators of the project argue that "Hardcore" is a thriller, a fantasy.

Despite a fairly simple single-layered story, very reminiscent of a video game, Hardcore touches on several important issues. First and foremost, this, of course, is the question of the humanity of carrying out experiments to revitalize deceased people, as well as the creation of artificial cyborgs using someone else's consciousness.

In addition, the picture veiled criticizes the thirst for revenge. After all, the same Jimmy could have lived happily. However, he died in search of a way to avenge Akan.

A lot of time in the tape is given to the theme of love. Knowing how powerful this motive is, Akan and Estelle decide to use it to control the army of soldiers. That's only hatred Henry is stronger, and he straightens with zombie lovers Estelle.

Who played Henry

After the release of the film, many were interested in the question of who played Henry in the film "Hardcore." The film (the actors performing this role, remained behind the scenes) does not give a clear answer to this question.

However, the project director Ilya Nayshuller said that Henry's image was created by a whole team of actors and stuntmen. In most of the scenes, Andrey Dementiev (also appeared in the film as Dmitri Khitry) and Sergei Valyaev are involved . In separate scenes Henry himself played Ilya. And during the chase, shootings and dangerous tricks of the protagonist played the experienced stuntmen.

Danila Kozlovsky as the main villain of Hardcore

Playing scoundrels like all professional artists, because it is in such roles that you can really show your skills.

The now popular Russian actor Danila Kozlovsky ("We are from the Future", "Status: Free", "Friday"), known to the audience for his roles as heroes and businessmen, has long dreamed of playing a villain. That is why I gladly agreed to become an albino Akan Danila Kozlovsky.

"Hardcore" was a real test for this artist, because for the sake of the role he had to wear a wig, thick lenses and several layers of makeup. However, Danila managed to cheer, and although his hero is not charming, but Akan is completely different from those noble handsome men that Danila Kozlovsky usually plays.

Hardcore, by the way, is not the first project in the career of an artist who entered the international market. Previously, Danil was shot in the American director Mark Waters's film The Academy of Vampires, in which he played a vampire.

Haley Bennett as the lover of the main character

The cast of the tape was international. So, the role of Estelle was invited to the American actress Hayley Bennett. "Hardcore" was the first Russian-made movie in which she starred.

In 2016 with Haley in the title role on the screens went Western "Magnificent Seven", a detective drama "Girl on the train" and a romantic comedy "The Rules do not apply."

Other actors of the project

Another foreigner who got involved in the project was an artist of South African origin, Sharlto Copley ("Team-A", "Maleficent"). He played poor Jimmy and all his incarnations, thanks to which he liked the audience "Hardcore" (film).

The actors were simply envious of Charlotto, who had the opportunity to create many different images. It is worth noting that his game was recognized as the best in the picture.

Also in the tape were: Ravshana Kurkova ("The Capercaillie at the Cinema", "Mamy"), Kirill Serebrennikov (Diary of the Murderer, "The Apprentice"), Tim Roth ("Deceive me", "The Ghoulish Eight") and others.

"Hardcore" (film): reviews of film critics

This project deserved very different reviews. For example, the jury of the Canadian Film Festival TIFF praised Hardcore. Film reviews received from Canadians the most flattering and deserved a prize of audience sympathy. In addition, the American company STX Entertainment found the project promising and acquired the right to hire.

As for the site Rotten Tomatoes, he gave "Hardcore" 48%, which is quite a good result for foreign films. Metacritic delivered 5.1 out of 10 possible.

As for the foreign press, she met Hardcore differently. The film reviews positive received from Forbes, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. But Popular Mechanics and The Guardian negatively reacted to the project, calling it fresh, but tiring.

In Russia the picture was met better. So, "Kinoopisk" put the tape 7.196 out of 10, and film.ru - 7 out of 10.

Spectator reviews

The audience met quite optimistic "Hardcore". The film reviews positive received at most forums and movie sites. They praised the freshness of the idea, the original embodiment, as well as the acting game of Kozlovsky and Kopli.

Some critically spoke about an excessively simple plot. However, other viewers in their reviews justified this lack of genre films. So, "Hardcore" almost unanimously recognized as a tape in the style of computer games a la "first-person shooter", where the protagonist for a limited period of time to perform a series of missions with the help of comrade.

Negative reviews deserved the mate, half-naked girls in the picture and cheap scenery, because this, in the view of viewers, creates the impression of Russia as a country of devastation, crime and prostitution.

Many viewers seriously believe that "Hardcore" will become the progenitor of a whole genre of feature films, shot from the first person.

Interesting facts

• The beginning of the filming of "Hardcore" was delayed because of Danila Kozlovsky, who was busy in other projects.
• The heroes of the painting speak to each other in Russian and English.
• Foreign actors were duplicated. So, Estelle spoke in the voice of Anna Chipovskaya ("pure art"), which previously starred with Danilo Kozlovsky in the "Spies." And Jimmy dubbed Peter Ivashchenko.
• All the events of the picture take place during one day.
• For the first time the picture was shown at the TIFF festival in 2015. It was released in Russia in April 2016.

Despite the rather contradictory reviews, "Hardcore", without a doubt, has become a unique phenomenon in the world cinema. Despite a lot of shortcomings, this tape proved that Russian filmmakers can shoot good fighters, but for this they need worthy funding.