After 1996, following the commercial success and critical success of Vinko Brešan's How the War Began on My Island, many Croatian critics began believing that the worst days of Croatian cinema were over. Any new Croatian film was widely promoted as "big" or something extraordinary. Film maker who exploited this phenomenon the best was Lukas Nola, whose early short and television works led many to believe that Croatia got its own Tarantino. Russian Meat, Lukas Nola's 1997 thriller, brought many of them back to reality.
The quality of film is suggested with few lines spoken in the film's prologue. Upset over inquisitive questions from Italian tabloid reporter, Croatian war veteran tells her "You want rubbish? You really want rubbish? You'll get rubbish". He invites his wife Ida (played by Barbara Zivkovic-Nola) and from there begins her story. Ida's sister was brutally murdered and Ida is determined to bring her killer to justice, no matter what the cost. The problem is in killer being Vuk (played by Ivo Gregurevic), drugged-out and ultra-violent owner of the brothel where Ida's sister used to work. Ida decides to infiltrate brothel and collect enough evidence, unaware that Vuk, who used to supply Croatian Army with much-needed arms during critical days of the war, enjoys protection from the highest level of government. The only one willing to help Ida in her quest is Hrvoje (played by Hrvoje Grgić), brothel's bouncer who is not what he claims to be.
At first, it looks that Russian Meat, being obviously inspired by Twin Peaks, would either give some insight into organised crime, corruption and other darker aspects of modern Croatia or at least be opportunity for some simple, low budget "trashy" fun. Unfortunately, Nola did one big mistake at the very beginning - he used his wife Barbara for lead role and later had some qualms about having her in scenes that could be too uncomfortable to watch or film. As a result, Russian Meat enjoys dubious honour of a film which for the most time takes place in brothel and never features any kind of nudity during that time. Scenes in which Ida wiggles out of her brothel employee's obligations are even less believable. The final showdown at the end shows that Nola had some problems in directing action scenes. On the other hand, the quality of acting is more than decent for current Croatian standards and there are even few truly funny scenes, of which the best features Croatian and Italian mobsters celebrating upcoming European unification by singing Toto Cutugno's song "Insieme". There are too few such scenes to justify spending hour and half of viewer's attention on Russian Meat. Croatian cinema industry would have to wait for its Tarantino.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on January 8th 2004)
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