Evilenko (2004)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

David Grieco

Writer:

David Grieco (writer)

Release Date:

16 April 2004 (Italy)

Genre:

Crime | Horror | Thriller

Plot:

In 1984, in Kiev, the communist teacher Andrej Romanovic Evilenko is dismissed from his position after a pedophilic act against a student...

Plot Keywords:

Serial Killer | Pedophile | Kiev | Communist Party | Child Murder

Awards:

1 win & 2 nominations

Cast

Malcolm McDowell	...	Andrej Romanovic Evilenko
Marton Csokas	...	Vadim Timurouvic Lesiev
Ronald Pickup	...	Aron Richter
Frances Barber
John Benfield
Eugenia Gandij
Ihor Ciszkewycz	...	Novikov
Fabrizio Sergenti Castellani	...	Tabakov (as Fabrizio Castellani)
Vladimir Levizkiy	...	Frolov
Alexei Chadyuk	...	Captain Ramenskij
Viktor Gluskov	...	Nikitin
Ostap Stupka	...	Doctor Amitrin
Vernon Dobtcheff	...	Bagdasarov
Adrian McCourt	...	Surinov
Romana Pollak	...	Irina Zubova

Runtime:

111 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

English

Color:

Color | Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Finland:K-15 | Netherlands:16 | Canada:16+ (Quebec) | Brazil:18 | Canada:18A (Manitoba) | New Zealand:R16 | UK:15 | Germany:16 | Italy:T | Australia:MA

Filming Locations:

Kiev, Ukraine

Company:

Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali (MiBAC)

Movie Connections:

Featured in O Lucky Malcolm! (2006)

Soundtrack:

Angel's Go To Heaven

McDowell excels for a change

Malcolm McDowell hasn't had many roles in the past several years that one could call good, but he excels in his role here as Andrej Evilenko, Communist Party Member, school teacher, and serial killer. We begin when he's still teaching school and keeps a young girl after class, and when he tries to rape her she stabs him in the arm with a pencil and when he won't show the wound to the headmaster, he's asked to resign. Of course, he tells his wife it's all part of a conspiracy, what with Gorbachev and his weird ideas about Perestroika and all that. Thanks to his loyalty he's given a job with the KGB, supposedly, but continues on with his little escapades of preying on children. The police are after him, of course, but they have no idea who he is and enlist the help of a homosexual psychoanalyst who finds Evilenko in a relatively short time. Unfortunately the psychoanalyst doesn't have any time to report his findings prior to his untimely death. Vadim Lesiev (Martin Csokas) is the police inspector hard on the trail, and he's so immersed in the case that his wife takes their daughter and leaves, until he finds the killer. When Evilenko is finally captured the resulting interrogation gets a bit weird, as it seems that Evilenko has some sort of hypnotic powers over his victims, but in this case it's merely the inspector playing along. This is all quite well done, and compelling, but it does seem to bounce around a bit. If you can also get past the fact that all the Russians have British accents, then you'll be just fine. I will assume this is another depiction of the same serial killer as "Citizen X", which is also a good film but not for the same reasons. 7 out of 10.