Locust

Language : Russian

 

Year of release : 2014

Run time : 49-53min / 4 episodes

Genre : Drama / Romance / Thriller / Mini Series / Tv Series

Cast : Pyotr Fyodorov, Paulina Andreeva

 

Locust is a Russian drama mini series aired in 2014.

Episode 1

Lera is the daughter of a very rich family. Igor, the man who works with her father, and finances everything, wants to marry her. She is 21 or so.

Artyom is a poor man,about her age,who writes poems and works as a carpenter.

They meet on a job as he and his friend build a gazebo for her family.

They start dating. Her parents aren't happy,as they want her to marry the man who finances her father's projects,and who is about her father's age.

Episode 2

Artyom gets published but he doesn't make money of it,so he works as a courier for Igor.

Lera's father wants her to marry Igor, as he depends on him.

Lera moves in with Artyom and live together for a year .She works as a secretary.

A widow, Natasha or Natalya ( in Russian movies they always call them by two different names to the point you have no idea who they talk about!) shows interest in Artyom at his second book release party (he is a ghost writer for Igor who financed the publishing of the book). He blows her off as she is rude to Lera.

Lera's father ends up in jail ( we don't know why) and Lera and her mother ask Igor for help.

Episode 3

Two years later, Lera is married to Igor .

Artyom,after living on the edge with s3x parties and dr@gs - although he doesn't drink for his father and grandfather are alcoholics,but drinks beer - maybe it's non alcoholic - ( eye roll) - married Natasha,who loves him,and who is also, very rich .

Lera and Artyom meet again and start an affair.

Artyom's wife drinks a lot, probably because she knows he doesn't love her, while she loves him, and then realizes he cheats.

Artyom k!lls his wife because she hired a detective and wants to file for divorce and that would be bad for Lera who's husband is jealous and beats her when she has affairs ( yes, affairs! there were others)

Artyom also has a gambling problem which happens off screen. Good thing he doesn't drink though! ( eye roll! )

Episode 4

Igor, Lera's husband, asks Artyom to move in with them, as he thinks Artyom is depressed Natasha k!lled herself ( Igor was good friends with Natasha. Small world,eh?) .

Artyom is depressed the joke was on him, as he k!lled his wife mostly for her money, and she was broke, so he had to move out of her mansion as he was left with nothing.

Moving in with Igor and Lera, the two start cheating again,behind Igor's back ,who thinks Artyom a friend, his only friend! I don't know why, friends do not steal each other's girlfriends! They cheat in Igor's own house, while she slips him sleeping pills.

Lera becomes more and more annoying. She causes scenes, so Igor would react badly to it, to manipulate Artyom into k!lling Igor. SPOILER They k!ll her husband, and then she gets upset he didn't leave her anything !

The title of the movie comes from something Natasha said to Artyom, that he and Lera are like locusts, they want to devour everything, they want everything, thinking they deserve it, but they don't want to work for anything they want ( like, for example, he is married to her, but doesn't fake affection towards her, he thinks being married to her and getting to spend her money, living a lavish life style should be enough).

The story is narrated by Lera but we see what Artyom did when he wasn't with her,so how does that work? The story is told always from his point of view not hers, we never see what she does without him, so she's not the lead, but she does the narrating!

The leading actress is very tall and wears heels too, making the lead male, who is 1,80 m, look short.

The leads become annoying,fast, because they cheat and lie to people who love them. Also, they don't seem fleshed out. They are the villains of their own story. I never watched a movie in which I disliked the leads so much!

I didn't like Lera for what she keeps on doing in the first,then second episode, as she keeps on wh0ring herself. She keeps on leaving Artyomn like a spoiled brat, without even telling him they are over, she just stops answering his calls! And when they meet again, she tells him they can be friends, while she fools around with other men in front of him.

She likes to fool herself into believing she's doing the right thing as she married the rich man to save her father from jail. She plays the victim card as her husband has s3x with her every night and has bad breath ( and that's unbearable!), but she forgets she offered herself to him when she was dating Artyom ,to save her father, and left Artyom to marry Igor !

Artyom is no better! After this little wh0re leaves him, he goes full depression mode, and grows his hair, looks like a hobo, and r@pes virgins in public restrooms, punishing others for what one bad woman did.

He comes to his senses after Igor offers him a helping hand (SPOILERS one of the things making him - and Lera- so despicable, is the fact Igor keeps on helping him, again and again, and he repays him by f@king his wife and k!lling his friend, and them him!), and goes to Natasha, asking her to be with him. He marries her but treats her like dirt,because.. he loves b!tch Lera.

I didn't feel the love between the leads ,it felt like the writer / director were more interested in having them naked in the weirdest places. It didn't look like the love they were supposed to feel for each other, but s3x. They should have taken lessons from movies like "Forever mine" or " The end of the affair" ,in those movies you can feel the love between the characters, as you get to see them feel for each other, express their feelings.. there's no such thing in this movie!

SPOILERS The first time they have s3x is in the rain, at night, at a bus stop,completely naked,when he takes her from behind! Anyone could have passed by and see them going at it,like animals,in the open! I think only once they actually make love ( we just see them naked,touching), the rest of the time ( twice per episode) they f@k,they never kiss when having s3x, and it becomes more and more rough. END OF SPOILERS

The whole time, it felt the makers were interested in having them do it in the most "exotic places" and positions to shock and awe ( And I think they wanted more s3x scenes and more explicit ones than the ones they filmed, as the leading man was quoted as saying he refused to do certain s#x scenes as he thought it was too much,while the leading actress was down for it! )

Just that, it didn't shock and awe me, it just bored and annoyed me,as it's so cliched! 

 

The movie rather bored me.

 

The acting was mostly fine, in the first episode or so, I didn't like how the lead actress played.

The leading actors are attractive, Artyom, Lera and Natasha.

Viewer discretion is advised as the film contains a lot of nudity.

Rating : Could have been a contender !