Cult Cinema: Pirates of the 20th Century (1980) - Reviewed

Courtesy of Gorky Film

Ukrainian born Soviet-Russian film director and screenwriter Boris Durov, the Merited Artist of the Russian Federation in 2000, first started out in military school before abruptly shifting gears to film directing where he and classmate turned collaborator Stanislav Govorukhin mounted their first feature Vertical.  Among the very first Soviet films focused on mountaineering, the film became one of the top box office contenders of 1967 and cemented Durov and Govorukhin’s status as a formidable pair of creative storytellers.  The two briefly went their separate ways, directing their own separate features but in 1979 they would reunite to make what is still considered to be among the highest-grossing films in the history of the Soviet Union: the modern-day pirates action-adventure flick Pirates of the 20^th Century.

 
Loosely based on real events involving a pirate attack on an Italian ship in the 1970s, the film follows Soviet cargo ship Nezhin after docking in the Philippines to pick up cargo of opium for pharmacy companies.  Upon departure to Vladivostok, they encounter a man overboard whom they rescue and identifies himself as Salekh (Talgat Nigmatulin) explaining his ship Mercury was capsized by a storm.  Happening upon the shipwreck Mercury, a rescue team is sent to search for survivors.  Unbeknownst to the crew however, its a ruse as Salekh turns out to be a pirate and with the stolen Mercury ship mounts an attack on the Nezhin and her crew.  It’s up to chief engineer Sergey (Nikolai Yeremenko Jr.) and the aptly named captain Ivan Ilych (Pyotr Velyaminov) to try and overthrow the pirates and save the day!

 
Shot in Crimea in lush panoramic Sovscope widescreen by renowned cinematographer Aleksandr Rybin and aided by a fiery action packed electronic and guitar driven score by Yevgeniy Gevorgyan, the fast and tightly paced Pirates of the 20^th Century is not only one of the very first true Russian action films but also among the first to incorporate karate techniques into the proceedings.  While ostensibly Soviet produced by Goskino with special changes made to the script, shifting the original story inspiration from uranium to opium, this is one of the most overtly western feeling Russian films ever made.  Something of an answer to the North American action blockbuster with real stakes and real violence and death on display, Pirates of the 20^th Century was a bit of an eye opener for Russian audiences unaccustomed to such intense thrills.
 
Initially withheld release by Goskino who feared it was too violent, the film was given a special screening to Leonid Brezhnev who was reported to have been touched by the story and the film was thus granted a theatrical release where it enjoyed enormous success, garnering some 87.6 million viewers upon initial airing.  While The Red Snowball Tree still holds the top honor for most successful Russian film of all time, Pirates of the 20^th Century is universally appealing to international audiences as well for its accessible action-adventure heroes vs villains setup and the locations filmed in the Crimean Peninsula remain breathtaking onscreen.

  

In the years since other world events inspired such pirate stowaway invasion thrillers as Captain Phillips, Edge of the World, Fishing Without Nets, The Island and at one point The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou parodied the concept.  But for world cinephiles who continue to scroll back on their archaeological dig through the annals of action-adventure cinema, they’ll be most surprised to find this Russian pirates actioner was among the first to get there.  If nothing else, it cemented director Durov and Govorukhin's place in the world as two of the most important action filmmakers who ever lived.

--Andrew Kotwicki