Genius

Sergey was once a gifted physicist. Now he runs a greengrocer's shop and commits crimes in his spare time. His schemes are technically flawless: nobody can prove anything against him. But past a certain point the arrangement he has built gets in the way of both the police and the mob. Both sides are looking for him. Viktor Sergeyev's Russian film was made just after the Soviet Union came apart. Aleksandr Abdulov takes the lead, with Innokenty Smoktunovsky in the cast. The telling does not turn crime into a moral question; the subject is a talented man who can find no place for himself in a collapsing country. The humour is black and the pace slow. The film was watched widely in Russia for years.