Shirli-myrli

Shirli-myrli
Directed byVladimir Menshov
Written byVladimir Menshov
Vitaliy Moskalenko
Andrei Samsonov
Produced byVladimir Dostal
Alexander Litvinov
StarringValery Garkalin
Vera Alentova
Inna Churikova
Igor Ugolnikov
CinematographyVadim Alisov
Music byTimur Kogan
Production
company
Release date
  • 1995 (1995)
Running time
136 minutes
CountryRussia
LanguageRussian

Shirli-myrli (Russian: Ширли-мырли, also released as What a Mess!) is a 1995 farce comedy film of the early post-soviet era directed by Vladimir Menshov. Centered around a pursued con man, who steal a huge diamond. The movie, among other things, satirizes chauvinism, antisemitism and other ethnic tensions in 1990s Russia. Valery Garkalin plays multiple roles as identical twins who were raised believing they belonged to different cultures and races, looking down at one another's.

Plot summary

While Russian miners are digging in the diamond mine, Unpromising, in Yakutia, an enormous diamond is found. It is called The Savior of Russia, and officials declare that the sale of the diamond could pay off the national debt, as well as pay for a three-year-long vacation in the Canary Islands for every citizen of the Russian Federation.

While the diamond is being transported to Moscow (by Antonov An-124 Ruslan) it is stolen by crime boss Kozulskiy (Armen Dzhigarkhanyan), who is then robbed by professional thief Vasiliy Krolikov (Valery Garkalin).

For the remainder of the film, the plot revolves around Krolikov, a con man raised as a Russian, and his two other identical multiple birth brothers; one was raised as a Jew to become a world-famous musician, another as a Russian Roma to become a Romani tabor [ru] chief and a member of Russian parliament. Krolikov is pursued by Kozulskiy's mafia and two militsiya officers - Captain Jean-Paul Piskunov (Igor Ugolnikov), and an unnamed lieutenant (Sergey Batalov). At the end of the film, it is revealed that there is a fourth brother, raised as an African American (also played by Garkalin), meaning that the brood is actually quadruplets.

Cast

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 ""Ширли-мырли"". Энциклопедия отечественного кино. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05.