The pyraMMMid

Original title : PiraMMMida

Language : Russian

Year of release : 2011

Run time : 1h50m

Genre : Drama / Crime

Cast : Pyotr Fyodorov, Fyodor Bondarchuk

The Russian movie is based on actual events and the biographic novel “Pyramid” by Sergei Mavrodi.

In 1994, communism has fallen and capitalism is yet to start. The state sells the biggest companies created by the Soviet Empire at auctions, but only the Russians are allowed to buy. Problem is, the people of Russia are poor, only a few banks have money. So the banks buy everything.

Mathematician Sergei Mamontov is looking for a way to make money, so he came up with “MMM” a credit organization , based on people’s greed, as he put it. He prints and sells his shares (which look like money with his own face on them) which he named tickets, based on the idea that “ Today it’s more expensive than yesterday”.

He has an incredible publicity campaign, with billboards and announcements all over Russia.

Due to this, his project is doing so well ,that the investors grow by a million weekly.

These tickets become as valuable or more valuable than real money in Russia, and Sergey brags about how soon it will become currency and replace the real money.

Sergei has an opponent in Belyavskiy, the head of the Russian Union’s manufacturers, and the owner of Megavazbank, who is trying to put an end to the MMM madness, as most investors choose MMM. According to Vasilievich (who becomes Sergei’s bodyguard after this ) Belyavskiy even tried to k1ll Sergei, by having his car blown up.

Sergei has a 6 year old daughter, and a wife he’s been separated from, and brings the kid a rare butterfly (that he is interested in) as a birthday gift, and gets upset the child wants toys instead of the insects he likes.

Sergei likes the Chaika cars, and he finds another that Anton is selling (since the one he had was blown up).

The agents spying on Sergei wanted to hire Anton, who graduated school at 12 years old, being a genius mathematician, but didn’t, as he’s seen as a liability, as he’s an alcoholic ( he just seems a normal guy though), and his girlfriend is 16 while he’s 23 years old.

Sergei buys the car with his tickets and hires Anton. Anton has many ideas meant to make them more money, one of them being owning the Miss Russia beauty pageant, and having the winners wear the MMM symbol of their company .

The agents spying on them come to the conclusion, at this pace, in 3 months, Sergei will have a quarter of Russia’s cash, and in 3 more, 40%!

Belyavskiy sends the tax inspectors to Segei’s business’ quarters, hoping to put an end to it, but Sergei is fine with it.

Sergei tasks Anton with buying banks and pretty much own the country at auctions.

The movie is not my cup of tea, as dramas and biographies do not interest me, but the movie was not bad.

The characters aren’t fleshed out, I think maybe, only Sergei is more fleshed out than the others, being the lead. We know he is divorced, has a little daughter that when kidnapped he doesn’t want to get back by giving into the ridiculous demands of the kidnappers by telling them he can make another if they k1ll her (!), thing his ex wife hears, and makes her commit su1cide. He has an affair with the reporter / journalist who writes a piece on him, affair which lasts SPOILER till he gets out of jail, 7 years later, when she picks him up. She is also the one helping him .I don’t know ,the way the movie is built, we don’t know much about who the characters are, who they’re with, and so on.

I personally watched the movie for Pyotr Fyodorov, who is my weakness. I don’t know how others see this man, but to me he is perfection. He reminds me of the Romanian song “Asa ceva” by Alex Velea,Smiley & Connect-R, which goes something like this “ I’ve never seen such a thing, Never in my life, since I was born, have I seen such a thing, Such a body such a face!”

Speaking of which, the actors were good.

The soundtrack was good.

You can watch the full movie with English subtitles for free, if you follow this link :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBZDZhpZQgU

this is a shorter version : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiQAdE4zjw0

Rating : Could have been a contender !