SYNOPSICS
The Half Life of Timofey Berezin (2006) is a English movie. Scott Z. Burns has directed this movie. Paddy Considine,Oscar Isaac,Valeriu Pavel Dan,Kenneth Bryans are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2006. The Half Life of Timofey Berezin (2006) is considered one of the best Drama movie in India and around the world.
In Russia, the technician and family man Timofey is exposed to 1,000 REMs (Roentgen Equivalent Man) of radiation in the nuclear facility where he works. The facility director hides the level of exposure from Timofey and tries to force him to assume the blame for the accident and puts Timofey on unpaid leave. Aware that the exposure is lethal and feeling the sickness of radiation, Timofey steals 100 mg of plutonium and heads to Moscow expecting to sell it on the black market for US$ 30,000.00 to give to his wife Marina and his seven year-old son Tolya. Meanwhile, the small-time criminal Shiv and the gangsters Vlad and Yegor need to pay US$ 6,000.00 to the powerful mobster Starkov in 72 hours. When Shiv meets Timofey trying to sell the Pu-239, he sees the chance to pay his debts and make some money. But he is incompetent and gets in trouble with powerful mobsters.
The Half Life of Timofey Berezin (2006) Trailers
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The Half Life of Timofey Berezin (2006) Reviews
Excellent, compelling drama, great acting, solid script. What else is there to ask for? Watch it!
AKA PU-239. A gem of a movie that deserves much more attention than (unfortunately) it's going to get. Honestly, I can't find any faults in this movie. OK, maybe, the mobster characters are a little bit over the top, but just a little, and it's a good thing. More entertaining. The script has obviously been written by someone who knows what he's talking about. Writing, acting, directing are all superb. It's the first intelligent "Russian" movie coming from Hollywood in ages. Too bad, not many people will see it due to the total lack of marketing from HBO. I got to watch it by accident while doing thoughtless channel flipping. Glad, I did.
Movie shown on HBO as "PU-239"
This is what Indie films are all about. An excellent flick, acting, plot, script, and all else very well done. On HBO this movie is billed as PU-239 so keep an eye out for it, but be careful what you inhale while watching it! Having been a physics major I can state that as far as the science goes the movie is loyal. Science, however, is just background. This movie is really about the human spirit continually battling against despair; the human condition and the lengths we will go to kill one another and to love one another; human ignorance and human intelligence, but without humility, and the trouble it will get us all into; and "in the end, everything decays into lead", like bullets, and the fact that no one gets out alive.
Silkwood Meets Eastern Promises
PU-239 is one of those movies where you find yourself without much to say about it. Paddy Considine, Oscar Isaac, Stephen Berkoff, and Radha Mitchell give decent performances and the film is not badly directed, but what cinema should do that PU-239 does not is leave you with a passionate reaction. I found that after having watched it, it was more like it was something on a list that I could check off and move on rather than an experience or an entertainment. It isn't even boring. It just doesn't reach. That's the reason why one feels so indifferent towards it. The plot is interesting: Considine plays a family man who works at a top-secret, worryingly shabby plutonium plant in a Russian town after the fall of the Soviet Union, and he's exposed to radiation while trying to stop a malfunction. The facility's managers try to convince Considine and also themselves that his exposure was a survivable 100 REMs, while accusing him of sabotage and suspending him without pay, but his colleagues help him discover the truth, which is that he was exposed to ten times the amount of radiation that the managers maintained he had. It's stated by one character in the movie that people in Hiroshima were exposed to less. So, with only days to live, and not letting his wife, played by Mitchell, know of his fate, Considine goes to Moscow. He hooks up with a small-time gangster, played by Isaac, who is in a great predicament himself, in hopes of finding someone to whom he can sell a vial of weapons-grade plutonium he has stolen from his plant so that he can send money back to his family to secure their future, though he states various times that his town is not on the map, which makes it unfeasible to send his letter home, much less any money. What's interesting about the dynamic between Considine and Isaac is that they never really form a bond, one being earnestly cooperative in his final days of life and one being frantic for his own interests to survive an almost as likely fate. Yet, they both have the interests of a wife and child in mind and have the same drive under those circumstances. But the Russian mobsters are too cinematic for a story as real and historical as this one. They do things only Guy Ritchie, Quentin Tarantino, and David Mamet characters do, especially Isaac's boss, who delivers a silly, unrealistic monologue when he first appears that in reality would have his listeners lost. This is not a bad film. It just minimizes the effect it could've had.
Recurring themes and great films
I don't know what it is this weekend, but I have tasted films from France (La Haine), Korea (Boksuneun naui geot), Canada (Eve and the Fire Horse), and now, Romania, albeit a US film. Three have revenge themes, two have multicultural themes, two deal with needed kidney transplants, and they all deal with family. There are many things in these films that make you want to think and think hard. Sure, there is also a lot of humor, but it never gets in the way of the themes. Paddy Considine (The Bourne Ultimatum, Hot Fuzz) gets screwed big-time at work. He is exposed to 1000 rems of plutonium. He knows he only has days to live and his bosses are not interested in doing anything but covering their butts. Sound familiar? Anyway, he steals 100 grams of PU-236 to help his family. At the same time, there are three low-level thugs who are also dying. They have 72 hours to pay off the big boss for their mistake. One of them, Shiv (Oscar Isaac) comes in contact with Timofey, and stumbles through a plan to solve both their problems. A comedy of errors ensues with Shiv's partners, Jason Flemyng (The Red Violin, Transporter 2) and Jordan Long. These two are just about the dumbest thieves in the business and they get a fantastic high at the end that will have you rolling on the floor. Comedy and tragedy mix well in Scott Z. Burns's (The Bourne Ultimatum, An Inconvenient Truth) film. It is a shame that it probably won't get a theatrical release. And, it's a real treat to see Radha Mitchell (Silent Hill, Man on Fire).
Great Film
Based on a short story by Ken Kalfus, PU-239 is about a man who worked all of his adult life in a nuclear processing facility, only to find himself contaminated beyond hope of survival because the plant is literally falling apart. Faced with precious little time to look out for his family's future, a good man does a bad thing, by stealing a small quantity of weapons grade plutonium to sell on the black market. His journey takes him to Moscow,where he must deal with Russian mobsters and street thugs while trying to survive long enough to make a transaction. The film is filled with little facts about the power and dangers of radiation, and examples of the affect that perestroika has had on Russian society. The plot takes many turns as the main characters find themselves in one ironic situation after another. While the details may be contrived (hey - it's a movie), the basic plot is very plausible and the scary thing is how much enriched plutonium is actually unaccounted for in the former USSR. I feel sure this film will be made available on DVD someday. But if you have access to HBO, watch it now. If you like dark satire and science, this films for you.