vikpk Gruz 200 is one of the most profound insights into the horror which the Soviet atheist and murderous era has delivered upon the Russian people and many other nations. Balabanov shows this through an every-day human drama which seems to develop in very non-dramatic way. But while you think you're watching a boring movie about Russian daily comings and goings of some boring people, you don't realize you're drawn into a penetrating story, a drama of much greater magnitude and meaning. The film is so thick with emotion, and blunt about the senselessness of life under communism, this great and beastly utopia, that when you are into it you are taking it in as if it were a nail-biting thriller. This is a true horror story. It is based on true events.You will be haunted and may not be able to sleep well after you watch it. Dumb zombie movies will seem like a stupid Hollywood scary feast of fake blood and guts compared to Gruz 200. There is no blood in this movie though, at least not in any gratuitous way.The viewer would appreciate the optimistic ending. I would not call it a "happy ending."Balabanov's genius is in his honesty. One who knows communism, its deceitfulness, its godlessness and the tremendous hatred for normalcy and honesty will appreciate this aspect of the director's approach.I highly recommended this movie. Balabanov is a master story-teller, as one other reviewer appropriately noted - he is "heavy- handed" but his madness has a method. And that method delivers an unforgettable message, so does the cast.I do not think I will be exaggerating, (basing my opinion on this and one more film of his) if I say that Balabanov may be compared to the great dissidents and authors that his nation has born from within their history laden with tyranny, cruelty and tragedy. He is presenting a picture which is so haunting because it is exposing the real face of a hateful and evil regime; therefore his message is optimistic and liberating. Gruz 200 is a masterpiece.

padimore99 After watching the film to the end, i launched myself off the chair, toward the television and returned to the beginning - so i could reassure myself that the word 'based on true events' had been written there. He (Alexey balbanov) may have been messing with us or not, but then the complete repulsiveness and disbelief at the fact that human beings are capable of such things, was the most riveting thing. The film and characters deliver a slice of outright realism, social decay, dark and twisted tales i have ever seen. And nowadays in times unsurprising storytelling, this film shocked the hell out of me. It wasn't the disgust of Captain Zhurov nor the helplessness of Angelika (my name-sake) that irritated me, but the sheer intertwining and coincidence that could be experienced in the film. Everyone crossed everyone else's path. This, like others have said, is a very very dark, sick, twisted movie... in a good way. That it keeps you interested and intrigued. I loved it, only with an open mind.

dusan-22 As a great fan of Aleksey Balabanov movies I probably expected too much from this film and was rather disappointed thereafter. The greatest problem that this movie faces is the lack of the feature film plot. When made in dark style film should use dynamic plot to make up for absence of light as it is effective plot balance. Otherwise it becomes dull, which is the case with this movie. Gruz 200 is following the bitter and creepy faith of the young woman in the last decade of USSR existence. Literally following, because camera goes after her many times disregarding the development of other actions. What film shows that happened to her can be put in just two sentences. Film needs much more than that, otherwise we could go to Somalia, take our camera, find the place of greatest atrocities and shoot the person that was the greatest subject of somebody's tyranny and sadism. Pity for all the film efforts, especially brilliant acting and fantastic camera, could have been better, if the plot axis had been developed more carefully.

A C Mr. Balabanov's latest work was tagged as "not for the squeamish", and it certainly lived up to that claim. Any other achievements? Up for debate. Perhaps for some the abundance of gratuitous gruesomeness in the bleak setting of industrial U.S.S.R town combined with some well-selected rock tunes makes for a masterpiece or at least for powerful film-making. For me Cargo 200 was a movie which hesitated for half of it whether to tell us about the gloom of the Soviet 80s, or about pointlessness of the war (whether as a literal tale of Afghan or an allegory for Chechnya), or about a professor of scientific atheism starting to question his beliefs in the times of glasnost before eventually deciding to go to its main storyline: Captain Zhurov's perverted affection for a young daughter of high-ranking communist official. Captain Zhurov appears out of nowhere (10 second shot of his creepy face excluded), right of the bat commits several highly disturbing acts of violence, and proceeds in similar vein throughout the rest of the movie . Balabanov himself said that, paraphrasing his words, the movie was about a different (read highly crazy) man falling in love and trying to conquer the girl's heart with unconventional techniques. Well, the center story that was told in the movie could have happened anywhere, which one could argue suggests theme's universality, but combined with the amount of detail devoted to recreation of the feel of 80's USSR is nothing but incongruous. Even the title of the movie, Cargo 200, bears little relation to the plot, aside from the fact that Cargo 200 contains the girl's fiancé whose dead body is unceremoniously dumped next to her. Mr. Balabanov is without a doubt a talented director, who says he alternates between big projects like Brat and the edgy/artsy ones like Cargo. Lets just hope his next commercial movie is better than this one.