The Major

(Major, Jurij Bikov, Russia 2013, 99 min., DCP, Russian w/subtitles)

Rochester Premiere. On a cold winter’s day Sergey Sobolev, a major at the local police office, is driving to the hospital where his wife is about to give birth to their child. High from happiness, he’s driving too fast and runs down a boy on a passage walk. The boy dies. Now the major has only two options: go to prison or conceal the crime. Sobolev decides to compromise with his conscience and calls on a colleague to help him out. But the case turns out to be messy and when Sobolev finally changes his mind and tries to make up for his deed, it’s already too late...

“Like an episode of The Shield transplanted to the snow-swept Russian countryside, writer-director Jurij Bikov’s The Major is a tense, handheld police thriller filled with scores of dirty cops, scenes of abrupt violence and a relentless, overriding sense of nastiness.” – The Hollywood Reporter