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Just perfect...

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Balabanov considered this to be one of his best films. Cinematically Cargo 200 is pretty solidly made, it is an effective period piece horror film laden with social commentary on the disintegrating Soviet system, just prior to its collapse a few years later. It discusses police corruption, alcoholism, the black market, the nepotism of the communist party, the Afghanistan war, and the party enforced 'scientific atheism'. It is likely not a coincidence that the key antagonist, played skillfully by Alexei Poluyan, resembles Stalin's head of secret police, Nikolai Yezhov (Poluyan had previously played the role of a ruthless Soviet secret police officer in Rogozhkin's "Chekist"), and that Felix Derzhinsky's bust figures prominently in one shot. The characters are very real, performances are effective, the cinematic treatment is Balabanov's traditional medium to wide shot (with a more static camera than usual), accompanied by period pop tunes carrying the soundtrack. The drama is suspenseful, and what is implied off screen adds to it. Personally I would have preferred if the story didn't enter horror territory (something Brother 1 and 2, and even War didn't do), that would make the social commentary more effective and broaden its audience (though Balabanov was a typical Russian director in that he didn't much care for public opinion). Having both combined in one is overload, although if you're a bonafide horror fan (which I'm not) your opinion may differ and feel free to add some more stars to my assessment.

Lars Von Trier and Coen brothers can retire. A must! This is the best Balabanov's movie so far. May be it is not appreciated yet (just 6.9 points) but it is a masterpiece. A very honest look back at the 80's, very dark of course - not the Red Square and Pokrovsky Cathedral, sorry. I liked his movie "Of Freaks and Men", was disappointed by "Zhmurki", but with "Cargo" Balabanov is back and better than ever.This is a very important movie especially for Russians who are rethinking now their Soviet past, but for Americans also, for obvious reasons... The term "cargo 200" was given to soldiers who found their way back to the motherland in zinc coffins.

It is a film about the death of totalitarianism in separately taken country. Year 1984, the life gloom of the Soviet power was condensed to the limit... Those who lived in USSR may cry when watching it. It is so cruel and at the same time so true. Every single part of you will tremble in the watching process. It is inspired from real facts, won't let anybody indifferent, I mean for those who knows at least something about the cinematography... Roles are played perfectly, just how it was meant to be played. People with weak heart and people that loves American Pie series, skip it, you won't like it anyway. For the rest, what can I say, you HAVE to see this movie. 9 out of 10

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.