Vladimir Mashkov Movies

The legacy of war leads to hatred and uncertainty on both sides in this historical drama from Russian director Alexey Uchitel. After the end of World War II, many Russians who had been taken prisoner by German troops found themselves subjected to one of Stalin's pogroms, accused of betraying the state and sent to a forced labor camp. Ignat (Vladimir Mashkov) is a strong and handsome former soldier who has been sent to one such camp, where he toils under the ineffectual rule of the commander (Aleksei Gorbanov). Ignat and his fellow inmates help keep a fleet of steam-powered trains in repair and stocked with coal, and while he has health issues that prevent him from spending much time behind the controls, his skill and good looks soon earn him the affections of the lovely and strong-willed Sofia (Yulia Peresild). When Ignat is told tales of a ghost who haunts a nearby island, he decides to investigate and finds Elsa (Anjorka Strechel) -- a child who has been stranded ever since her parents, a pair of German train engineers, were lost there during the war. Ignat brings Elsa back to safety, but discovers that his fellow prisoners still harbor plenty of resentment against the Germans, even as represented by a starving child. Krai (aka The Edge) was Russia's official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category to the 2010 Academy Awards. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This version of The Idiot, made for the Russian TV, is actually the first attempt to film the Fyodor Dostoyevsky novel in its entirety. Yevgeny Mironov plays the title character, Russian Prince Myshkin, who returns to St. Petersburg after a stay in a Swiss mental hospital. The prince is not literally a mental midget; he is considered an idiot because, as an honest and upright person, he cannot keep pace with the evil in the world. He busies himself with the petty problems of his aristocratic friends, which drive him back into the recesses of insanity. Lidiya Velezheva co-stars as Nastassya Filippovna, the woman of loose morals who turns out to be the only person who truly cares about Myshkin's welfare, while Vladimir Mashkov plays the nominal villain of the piece, an iconoclastic merchant named Rogozhin, whose passion for Nastassya culminates in tragedy. The Idiot was previously filmed in France in 1946, in Japan by Akira Kurosawa in 1951, and in Russia in 1958. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A television commercial for a Sega game system that aired during the 1999 MTV Music Video Awards landed debut director John Moore a gig behind the camera of this military action thriller. Owen Wilson stars as Lt. Chris Burnett, a naval aviator aboard the U.S.S. Carl Vinson who's frustrated with the strict "hands-off" political policies that prevent him from experiencing combat against hostile Bosnian forces in his F/A-18 Superhornet jet. Burnett's commander, Admiral Reigert (Gene Hackman), thinks that the brash pilot doesn't have what it takes to be in the millitary, but the eager young officer soon gets the chance to prove his mettle. While conducting a routine photographic reconnaissance over a remote area of the Balkans, Burnett captures grisly images that serve as proof of genocidal crimes, but his plane is blown out of the sky. He's soon pursued on the ground by the forces of Lokar (Olek Krupa), a Serbian paramilitary leader intent on covering up unthinkable crimes, while Reigert defies the NATO orders of his superior (Joaquim de Almeida) and risks his career to mount a covert rescue mission. Behind Enemy Lines (2001), the first of two back-to-back releases starring Wilson and Hackman (the other being The Royal Tenenbaums), also stars David Keith, Gabriel Macht, and Charles Malik Whitfield. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

A gangster finds his professional, family, and romantic lives all taking unexpected turns in this offbeat suspense drama. Oleg (Vladimir Mashkov) is a kingpin in the Russian Mafia who has decided to get out of the business and move to the United States, buying a posh estate in Southern California as a retirement home. Oleg's mother, Anna (Lesley Ann Warren), was once a well-known dancer who was just 14 when she gave birth to him; only a few years later, she fled the Soviet Union, leaving Oleg behind. Today, the much-married Anna is living in California and dating Miguel (Jsu Garcia), a political activist from Peru, though she remains close with her third husband, Michael (Dean Stockwell), and their son, Alex (Henry Thomas). Oleg is also on good terms with Alex, and at a party at Oleg's new mansion, he announces that he'd decided to turn his share of the business over to Alex, much to the disappointment of Anna, who imagined the responsibility (and the money) would be going to her. Oleg soon realizes someone has it in for him, as he begins receiving threatening telephone calls and mysterious packages in the mail; adding to his discomfort, Oleg finds that his new home is overrun with roaches. Oleg calls an exterminating service, and to his surprise, they send over Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh), an attractive young woman who is to spray the home for bugs. Despite the constant activity around him, Oleg hasn't a wife or a girlfriend, and he finds he's quite taken with Lisa. Throwing caution to the wind, he decides to offer her a sizable tip along with the standard exterminator's fee if she'd be willing to sleep with him. Vladimir Mashkov's performance in The Quickie earned him the Best Actor prize at the 2001 Moscow Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The personal lives of five exotic dancers go under the microscope in this drama, the first American feature from director Michael Radford. Eddie (Robert Wisdom) is the manager of a strip club in suburban California known as the Blue Iguana, where he keeps an eye on the women who make their living dancing for his customers. Stormy (Sheila Kelley) is an attractive, thick-skinned woman who is getting old enough to realize her days as a dancer may be numbered. Jo (Jennifer Tilly) likes to think of herself as the Blue Iguana's star attraction, though her career may hit a detour now that she's learned she's pregnant. Angel (Daryl Hannah) is a sweet, but immature woman, who tries to deal with her fear of being unloved by adopting a child. Jasmine (Sandra Oh), an aspiring poet, tries not to get settled into a career as a stripper, while being encouraged in her writing by coffeehouse owner Dennis (Chris Hogan), who features spoken word performers. And Jesse (Charlotte Ayanna), the youngest of the performers, expresses her desperate need for approval in her desire to please the customers. Dancing at the Blue Iguana received its world premiere at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A boy and his mother try to get by in the Soviet Union of the 1950s in this tragedy written and directed by Pavel Chukrai. The joint Russian-French production opens with a woman falling down in the snow and mud to give birth to a child in 1946. The boy's father is a soldier who died in the war. Katya (Yekaterina Rednikova) and her son Sanya (Misha Philipchuk) are next seen six years later on a train. Poor and desperate, she falls in love with a rakish soldier, Tolyan (Vladimir Mashkov). Tolyan pretends to be Katya's husband and uses his credentials as a war veteran to get an apartment without paying money in advance -- he turns out to be a brutal and abusive man. He teaches Sanya his ruthless code of manhood while rolling razor blades in his mouth with his tongue. Tolyan also brags to the boy that he is a secret son of Stalin. After several weeks of mooching off and seducing the other tenants, Tolyan buys them all dinner and tickets to a circus. During the performance he sneaks back to the building and robs everyone. Katya is suspicious that he is carrying on with a female tenant he has been flirting with, and she returns to catch him in his burglary. He tells her she can escape with him or stay behind, but she has no skills and no prospect of work, so she takes Sanya and follows him. Katya becomes a part of his con game as they move from city to city, working the same schemes. Tolyan also teaches Sanya his thieving ways. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

The hectic, materialistic lives of Russian nouveau riche provide the framework for this Russian thriller. The two protagonists, Ivan and Misha are two rubes who came to Moscow to participate in the perestroika economic boom. They are definitely limitas, Russian for hicks. Ivan becomes a wealthy computer code-breaker. The story really begins when he is given a disk to decode. It is an incredibly difficult code to break. Just as he is breaking it, he discovers that the code was set by Misha who is a technical specialist for a bank. Wanting to protect his friend he stops the decoding program. Because Misha is the only one with the disk key, Ivan's action accidently causes him to be killed. Ivan seeks revenge but when he discovers that the information on the disk has involved him he becomes bitter and cynical. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi