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Karaganda: Red Mafia
USA 2025
produced by
Nina Gortinski, Max Weissberg, Ego Mikitas (executive), Christy Cressey (executive), Sameer Dua (executive)
directed by Max Weissberg
starring Konstantin Lavysh, Nikita Bogolyubov, Dimiter D. Marinov, Natasha Blasick, Richie Stephens, Alexander Karavay, Anton Narinskiy, Ilia Volok, Alek Friedman, Ion Ciotu, Michael Ark, Roman Mitichyan, Igor Komar, Ego Mikitas, Svetlana Rumi, Dimitry Rozental, Mike Eshaq, Ruslan Safarov, Milana Manko, Ryan Dodge, Nick Tereschenko, Eduard Osipov, Bogdan Aktamakov, Gregory Flitsanov, Martin Harris, Alim Kouliev, Sean Berube, John J. Jordan, Artak Babakhanyan, Hovhannes Babakhanyan, Zeljka Cvjetan, Nika Balina, Annie Semenova, Lauren Collier, Vadym Krasnenko, Anna Oris, Daniel Locicero, Andy Gates, Stefaniya Makarova, Mo Anouti, Yakov Kolontarov, Alexander Dunaev, Valeria Sweet, Irina Dubova, Zach Sayenko, Edgar Pevsner
story by Max Weissberg, Nina Gortinski, screenplay by Max Weissberg
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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Russia 1982: Vladimir (Konstantin Lavysh), a talented smuggler, has
stumbled over his own talent and got arrested and sent to Karaganda, an
extremely violent labour camp. That's bad enough, but worse is that his
wife Elena (Natasha Blasick), for the mere fact that they are married, is
sent to another labour camp, and he's understandably worried sick about
her. At first, Vladimir finds the labour camp hard to cope, but he
eventually makes a friend in Aleksei (Nikita Bogolyubov), a former
pickpocket who shows him the ropes and soon enough the two help each other
out where they can. Eventually, Vladimir figures to track down his wife,
he must join the Vors, a mighty prison gang, and even though Aleksei is
more than a bit sceptlcal in that, he helps Vladimir in his mission.
Eventually, Elena is found and brought to him, and from her he learns that
she has been raped in custody - and shockingly, her rapist was one of the
Vors ...
12 years later: Vladimir has since been released from prison and sent
into the USA just because he's a jew, and there he has joined a group of
the Vors run by Vanya (Dimiter D. Marinov) and now specializes in forging
Dollar bills to be shipped into Russia. But something goes wrong with the
last shipment and he blows up a whole airbase just to get away -
unsuccessfully so, and he's about to be executed - when Aleksei turns up
out of the blue and saves his life at pretty much the last second. But it
might be no coincidence nor an act of friendship that Aleksei turned up
right then and there, he might have his own sinister agenda ...
Kraganda: Red Mafia is a pretty tight gangster thriller that,
while employing many of the genre tropes, goes out of its way to tell an
original and unusual story that even brings politics into the mix in a
very unforced way. Add to that a dynamic directorial effort that allows
barely a slow moment without forgetting to add heart to the mix, great
believably locations and a very solid cast, and you've got yourself a very
entertaining and actually quite intelligent piece of genre cinema.
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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