Out in 2014. Former classmates celebrate their 20th anniversary of graduation. All of them studied in one of the schools in the village of Varmaley, Nizhny Novgorod region. Fate took the heroes on different paths after its completion, but a common holiday brings them together.
Meanwhile, the group is gathered together as if by choice: a police officer Vasya, as simple as three kopeks speaking only in terms from a criminal law textbook (Ivan Dobronravov), his old school crush Milka (Kristina Asmus) and her current husband, a hooligan Anton ( Dmitry Chebotarev). Anton has a secret lover and part-time wife of Vasya, Nina (Karina Razumovskaya). There is also a vile deputy with the Napoleon complex, the driver of the deputy governor of the Grin region, a sexually dissatisfied teacher Agronomova (Agrippina Steklova), etc.
If you’ve already managed to get confused in the characters and how they relate to each other, that’s just the beginning. Even more confusing is the plot of only the first two chapters, where nothing is clear.
When the heroes arrive in their hometown of Varmaley, they witness an accident in which Vasya and Milka accidentally fall. A cop in an official car miraculously flies across the bridge to the river without getting to the bottom with him. In an attempt to seize state property, Vasya accidentally pulls a car from the bottom of the river that has been under water for twenty years. Inside is a thermos containing the skeleton of an unknown man and, as it turns out, a space meteorite that fell to Earth 20 years ago.
Who is this mysterious deceased and what kind of celestial body he got – questions of the second plan. More importantly, who will own this coveted meteorite now (everyone calculated how much it could cost on the black market)? Moreover, the heroes begin to die one after another, and the mysterious and terrifying traveler Mushin (caricature of a recent KGB officer) “Tetris” Igor Grabunov, who was also hunting for a piece of space).
Before you begin to scold “Raytsentr”, it is worth noting its high initial potential. A rural comedy written in the genre of adventure fiction and even in different time periods (2014 in the show is constantly replaced by 1994, when the characters just finished school and stepped into adulthood) – in theory, this step sounds interesting and original. Provided that the content does not succumb to the figure.
But “Raycenter” stumbles for the first time, precisely in its own structure, in which the present and the future alternate with a dizzying gravity. And the scenes pile up like a layer cake. I would like to believe that the plot will gradually unfold in some sort of regular sequence, but no. The first two episodes pass, and it seems like a fast train has passed before your eyes: you certainly saw it, but it all happened so fast that you couldn’t take a closer look.
The same applies to the main characters, the number of which is full of eyes. And if these heroes were at least a little original, there would be fewer questions between them. Christina Asmus reappears in the role of an already familiar woman who knows no bounds in make-up or demeanor (it’s sad that she continues to be abused in this look because Asmus is a good character actress). Chebotarev is again a charming hooligan from the main road, Dobronravov is a doggy-eyed and kind-hearted dope that no one appreciates, and Alexei Zolotovitsky is once again a stuttering quiet man who is always like the background shadow of the main characters.
Replace the name “Raytsentr” in the filmography of these actors with any other, and you will not immediately notice the change – these images are very worn and tiresome. The most frustrating thing is that there is no additional depth to the joke sets inherent in each character. They are just like that, because in comedy the characters always seem strange and unnecessary, otherwise the audience will not know when to start laughing.
Lubok cheats with annoying jokes in the style of the golden age of “Full House” work for the same purpose. It’s like the image of a classroom teacher whose drawers are filled with dildoes, and she’s walking around the house in red lacy underwear (she looks like Agent Provocateur whose one set isn’t even enough for a six-month salary, a rural teacher).
This whole ensemble of excellent actors (not only has a higher claim to their used roles, not the brilliant and talented artists themselves) is like a skit from the kingdom of warped mirrors. Just a little more and eventually everything will turn into uncontrollable comedy with off-screen laughter – as fake as television images of people laughing at old-style comedians’ concerts, when the scale of the joke spoken doesn’t match the audience reaction shown on screen.
Something similar comes out from “Raytsentr”. You sit in front of the screen, adapting to a cool story with sharp satire, but instead of a good humorist with fresh material, a conditional Petrosyan comes to the scene, tiredly repeating jokes. And of the jokes that have been told 100 times so far, it’s not only funny anymore, it’s also stale embarrassing.