An almost 2.5 hours long snoozefest where the first hour kinda interesting with how russia turned to capitalism and democracy at the end of 80s, early 90s. But other than that the interesting things horribly slowly and painfully leave the building. We are left with Paul Dano's soft, but sometimes firm Badanov. Who is everything, but interesting or captivating. When Putin finally comes around you strongly grab Jude Law's shirt, because he's the only one who can save you from falling asleep. He doesn't brings his A-game, but still better than anything else. Vikander and everyone else is a side note character. A terribly boring recount of how they grab the power and formed Russia from seemingly democratic state to this not so seemingly democratic dictatorship. It barely shows the mechanics at play here. The movie claims the beginning that at the end of the day it still a fictional work. Yet they don't dare to take a stance on the character's and their motivations. Just a surface level characterization and implying their motivations. Sure, some of the machinations and power moves could have been interesting, but they were written so dry that you just want it to get over it. A great fucking miss of a movie that didn't dare to take a strong stance on what they think of their own characters. I wish I could get back my time...

this is an old fashioned American propaganda film. nothing new to watch.

Once Yeltsin and Putin enter the picture this movie switches from being a slog to quite interesting