Mishen (Target) (2011)
IMDb meta-data has a bladder-challenging runtime of 2 hours and 45 minutes, rated 5.7 by 661 cinematizens.
Genre: Sy Fy (sort of).
DNA: Russia.
Tagline: An Eternal Putin!
Verdict: The elephant brought forth the mouse.
The fraternity brothers advise that it includes sex and violence, and violent sex, for those who like that.
In distant 2020 a small group of ageing, ultra-rich Moscow oligarchs find a fountain of youth and are…rejuvenated. The magic elixir collects in an abandoned facility of the Soviet space program called Target. Only lately have its properties been understood, but it was too late for Ponce de Leon.
These plutocrats are none too nice, and rejuvenation does not improve them. Does the astral mineral stop ageing or slow it, the subtitles weren’t sure. Whatever, bathing in radiation after Chernobyl did not seem very attractive but they do it.
Billy Wilder once said he started screenplays with the last scene and then worked back to how it all got there. He made that explicit in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and then topped it with another. Too often screenwriters and directors have no end in mind, no resolution, no summation, no direction on which to conclude, and this movie is an example of that. Like a student writing a thesis without a purpose who stops when the word limit is reached, it ends when they ran out of film not when the story concluded because it didn’t, perhaps, because it couldn’t, having no conclusion.
The science fiction trigger of the magic substance and some futuristic gadgets are minor accoutrements, not central to the story of what a few people would do if eternal youth were possible. Pretty much the same old stuff as they do now. Egads, more unbearable budget committee meetings!
The cinematography is superb both of the future in urban Moscow and in the wilderness near Mongolia where Target was located. It is a treat for the eyes, and the acting is fine. The whole, however, is less than these parts. Nor is it diverting. The film is as shallow and self-indulgent as the characters it portrays, rather like the remakes of The Great Gatsby (1974 and 2013). There is much emphasis on China and Chinese but it adds nothing to plot or character. And, why would such a future world continue to rely on semi-trailer road transportation that looks just like the 1950s.
Curiously one of the leads is a bilingual Anglo among all those Russkie names in the credits.