Product Details

• Actors: Natalya Akimova, Alexei Serebryakov, Yuri Stepanov, Leonid Gromov, Alexei Poluyan
• Directors: Alexey Balabanov
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: Russian
• Subtitles: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: The Disinformation Company
• DVD Release Date: April 28, 2009
• Run Time: 89 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001PKPVRG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #121,125 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

CARGO 200 - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best Russian movies of the last decade, July 12, 2009

By 

D. McVey "Geographer" (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cargo 200 (DVD)

This is an important Russian movie. If anyone is yearning for the former glory days of the Soviet Union, this movie will give you a lot to think about. It's a great little thriller in its own right, but has a lot to say about the various parties and processes that drove the Soviet Union. It would be great to hear other people's interpretations. I am glad that there is this brave Russian director.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Effective, upsetting horror and pitch black political satire, September 19, 2011

By 

K. Gordon - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cargo 200 (DVD)

Unique, deeply disturbing combination of 'Last House on the Left' type
horror, pitch-black political satire, and fury at the sickness of one's
own society.

The film was said by it's director to have been explicitly made to
combat the growing nostalgia, fueled by Putin, for Soviet era Russia.

Based on true events that occurred in 1984, as the Soviet Union sank
ever deeper into the Afghanistan quagmire ('Cargo 200' is the code
names for bodies being brought back from the war), this depiction of a
'Deliverance' type grotesque family who sell illegal booze to finance
their fantasy of one day creating a utopia in the middle of nowhere,
and the complete psychopath of a police captain 'friend' who protects,
but ultimately turns on them, and ends up committing murder, along with
rape, torture and kidnapping of a young girl who happens by - all while
being paid by the government.

The slow build is handled pretty brilliantly, and we're surprised over
and over at exactly who turns out to do what - although the feeling of
doom hovers over the film from it's first moments. By the end of the
film, the depravity is so insane, and depicted in such a matter-
of-fact way, that the only reaction one can have is to laugh a terribly
disturbed, uncomfortable laugh.

It's as if Balabanov took torture porn, but turned it into the darkest
possible comedy performance-art by having it comment on the world in a
bigger way (but isn't that really what all the truly great horror films
do?)

The cinematography is also 'beautiful' in its almost loving framing of
ugliness, both human and industrial.

Major plot questions are left unanswered, but that doesn't feel like
sloppy film-making, but rather an intentional (if frustrating) method
of making us ponder what we've just witnessed, instead of being able to
walk away and forget.

Some of the acting is awkward, but there are images I that will stick
with me a long time, and I have the feeling the film might grow even
deeper on repeated viewings. It isn't often you read various critics
comparing a film to both the Coen bothers and 'Saw', or a critic saying
'it made me want to puke, and I mean that as a high complement', but
it's that much a one-of- a-kind film.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully Perverse, April 28, 2009

By 

Harley Lond "OnVideo.org" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cargo 200 (DVD)

Every once in awhile a really off-beat film comes along that shocks you out of your moviegoing complacency. It has disturbing images or a bizarre storyline or is just downright strange and different. The original "Night of the Living Dead" (tame now but in 1968 ...), "Eraserhead," "Blue Velvet," "El Topo," "Wild Bunch," "Mad Max," "Repulsion," "From Dusk to Dawn" come immediately to mind. "Cargo 200" is one of those films, a real surprise and shocker from Russian director Alexey Balabanov. The film, a gritty thriller loosely based on actual events (Russian serial killer Gennady Mikhasevich) that becomes the blackest of black comedies, is set in 1984 in provincial Russia, where the gloom of Soviet life has reached extreme depths. It runs the gamut of wayward youth, Soviet-era rock 'n' roll, philosophical discussions on religion and state atheism, government corruption, murder, sexual perversions, police brutality and death. This is a film that shatters all expectations and preconceptions. As it progresses, it just keeps getting more and more bizarre.