Harrill Reporting

S A Hazlewood wrote and directed Bigga than Ben: A Russian’s Guide to Ripping Off London. Wanting to dodge the military draft in Russia, two friends decide to move to England. Fraud, shoplifting, and other shenanigans soon follow. As the friends try to survive, their misfortune becomes deeper and deeper.

I love that you think you are watching a documentary. This is because the film is basically an adaptation of the diaries of Pavel Tetersky and Sergei Sakin. The dark humor through the beginning is hilarious, but soon goes away, diving into the disheartening edge of real-life London that the friends see. As Niall Greig Fulton says that this “film is a brilliantly savage black comedy, bursting with raw energy, that cleverly reflects the journey of its protagonists via its changing styles and tones, its abrasive humour slowly dissolving to reveal its recognition of the cold, moral truth.”

4.5 film reels