Brigada

Brigada
title screen
Directed by	Aleksei Sidorov
Produced by	Valery Todorovsky Anatoly Sivushov
Written by	Igor Poroblyov Aleksei Sidorov
Starring	Sergei Bezrukov Dmitri Dyuzhev Vladimir Vdovichenkov Pavel Maikov Yekaterina Guseva
Distributed by	Beta Film GmbH
Release date	2002
Running time	750 min.
Country	Russia
Language	Russian

Brigada (Russian: Бригада), also known as Law of the Lawless, is a Russian 15-episode crime miniseries that debuted in 2002. It became very popular, but received mixed reviews due to accusations in aestheticization of violence. The miniseries follows the story of four best friends from 1989 to 2000, mainly concentrating on the leader of the group, Sasha Belov, played by Sergei Bezrukov. The fifteen-part miniseries were written by Igor Porublyov and Aleksei Sidorov and were directed by Aleksei Sidorov.

The film proceeds in chronological order, apart from the scene at the beginning of the first episode before the opening credits, which was taken from Winter 1997.

The film begins in 1989 when Sergeant Alexander (Sasha) Belov, (nicknamed Bely, or white) has finished his national service in the Soviet Border Troops, and returns to his home in Moscow. He is greeted there by his three childhood friends, Kosmos Kholmogorov (or Kosmos (Kos)/Space), Viktor Pchyolkin (Pchyola/Bee), and Valery Filatov (Fil/Phil). His return, however, shows that perestroika has deeply transformed the Soviet Union life and both Kosmos and Pchyola have turned to criminal racket on Moscow's markets. They try to lure Sasha to join them, but Belov abruptly refuses and instead has ambitions to attain higher education in vulcanology.

Belov also learns that his former girlfriend, Yelena Yeliseyeva (Lena, Lenka) has become a prostitute. Enraged, Sasha ventures to the disco, and finds her there, but an attempted conversation is interrupted by Yelena's pimp, Mukha (Fly). Having earlier prepared for a likely fight, Belov strikes Mukha in the face with a brass knuckle resulting in fracture. Before Mukha's fellow gangsters have time to beat up Sasha, Kosmos, Fil and Pchyola arrive and rescue their friend.

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