The Duelist (Duelyant) [Sub: Eng]

A welcome indication of the current Russian cinema's commercial ambitions and potential.

The clichéd story line pursues turgidity with a relentless determination.

Dazzles and provokes as it makes little real sense beyond the confines of its hermetic milieu.

The look of the movie is still the most appealing thing about it. Whether you watch a film on a giant screen or an iPhone, the format doesn't untangle messy plot threads.

Most fans of costume drama don't head to the movies expecting explosive exit wounds, and few action fans are going to be wowed by ostentatious lapels.

A tiresome but meticulously detailed and visually sumptuous Russian melodrama about romance and intrigue amid the nobility in 19th century St. Petersburg.

Gorgeously empty, The Duelist is more interesting as a reflection of the Russian sociopolitical climate today than it is as an actual goddamn movie.

Writer-director Mizgirev has a sharpshooter's cold pair of eyes. His lens adds an antiseptic quality to the many deaths... It's Fyodorov's performance that communicates the emotional burden of killing.

...a swashbuckling, exciting tale.

Decidedly retro and spectacular to look at.

Eye for detail makes The Duelist's protagonists just as compelling as their setting.

Mizgirev's script is an indigestible, soap-operatic mess of backstories, clichés, and the kind of ambiguous mystic overtones that have become an unbreakable addiction for Russian film.