The premiere of the first episodes of Yuri Bykov's series 'Likhie' took place on the Start platform. A gloomy and sullen true crime about a hitman, his son, and the 90s.

1991. At a moment when life in the country literally froze in anticipation of disaster, the dashing gamekeeper Pavel Likhovtsev (Artyom Bystrov) discovers that his apiary in the taiga has been destroyed by a bear. The remaining honey also couldn't be sold for a good price (it's now cheaper than sugar). Decent earnings are now a thing of the past, and it's unclear how to live now. Likhovtsev is caught in sad contemplation by his old friend Yura (Alexander Golubev), who moved to Khabarovsk long ago. Judging by his stories, Yura lives quite well there and immediately offers Pavel to sell his meager belongings and move to the big city with him.

Tough and used to deciding everything in an instant, Pavel realizes he has nothing to lose. He quickly persuades his wife, loads everyone into a battered UAZ, and leaves. In Khabarovsk, the former gamekeeper settles into a modest apartment, and soon Yura appears with an offer to work as a 'driver' and take some guys to a 'meeting'.

On his first working day, Pavel first gets into a serious showdown, and then becomes a full-time hitman for a local gang. Pavel takes his son on dangerous missions, who one by one learns the cruel laws of life and naively believes that everything can still be changed and they can live happily.

To the title of the series 'Likhie', one canonically wants to add '90s', and this play on words clearly shows the authors' intention. But no. It's a true crime about a hitman named Likhovtsev. Hence the title. And in the plural because the series is not so much about showdowns as about the tragedy of a single family, the Likhovtsevs, who found themselves on the edge of an abyss at a certain moment in life.

The director of the project is Yuri Bykov, who directed 'The Fool', 'The Factory', and 'The Watchman'. After a short break in his career, the director seems to have become even tougher: swinging properly, he hits not the eyebrow but the eye.

The hackneyed 90s on screen are already like family (the series 'Combination' recently ended, so we didn't have to wean off). Only this time Bykov thickened the colors to a gloomy urban noir, extremely close to Balabanov's cinema and unexpectedly to bloody Hong Kong action films. The director is stingy and precise, like an engineer: everything is verified to the comma, the picture only uses wide-angle lenses. He doses cruelty, effectively stages short shootouts, and even scares with simple but very uncomfortable horror.

It's quite possible that in the future, the well-watched Bykov will still make a horror film. And not about reality, but about something mystical. He should definitely succeed.

As in his previous films, in the series 'Likhie' Bykov did not forget his favorite theme of contrasting the little man with the big and dangerous system. But here the main character, played by Artyom Bystrov, does not so much resist this system as finds his life's work in it. Associated with risk, of course, but for Likhovtsev it's just a side effect. Already gloomy and taciturn, Pavel gradually loses his human appearance, turning into a lone hitman (beast?) and firmly believing that he commits crimes solely for the good of his family, which, in fact, he no longer has. And it seems he even enjoys comforting himself this way.

The first episodes look good. Outwardly, they fully satisfy the demand for authenticity of the depicted era. But unlike many projects about the 90s, Bykov does not nostalgia, does not harbor illusions, and does not try to feed them to the viewer. He works on each scene as if it were his last, breathing the same air as his characters. On the principle: this is how it really was. And according to Bykov, it's scary.

'For them, we are either their own or witnesses,' Yura says to Bystrov's character. And this phrase, perhaps, accurately illustrates the life story of the characters not only in the series 'Likhie' but also in many others. Bykov simply cuts from the shoulder, not mincing words. It's hard to guess whether 'Likhie' will become a hit this fall, and Bykov will successfully land in his comfortable atmosphere of hopelessness. Here, perhaps, one needs to act more subtly, but the director is used to going straight ahead. But the last word is still with Bykov. He has shocked the audience more than once. Why not do the same this time.