The noir thriller 'Centaur' is in wide release, in which Ilya Naishuller enthusiastically retells his favorite films.

Late at night, a yellow taxi with cup holders pulls out of the garage. Behind the wheel is a taciturn and attentive driver, Sasha (), who prefers to sleep during the day and 'cruise' through the empty city in the dark, because there are 'fewer traffic jams and less fuss,' and passengers are 'easier to see.'

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Sasha is not one of those chatty taxi drivers, but he can always keep a conversation going, while also testing his guesses about those who temporarily become his passengers. The soothing ride through the night city invites relaxation; people let their guard down, and the journey to their destination turns into a short session of psychoanalysis, or even confession.

The same will happen with another passenger in Sasha's taxi—an escort girl named Lisa (Anastasia Talyzina). The girl first visits a couple of addresses, then suggests that Yura rent out his taxi for the whole night, just to drive around the city. During the ride, Sasha and Lisa learn a lot about each other, and the impenetrable driver (like Travis Bickle from ) will sense a kindred spirit: another loner in the big city, and sincerely want to help his passenger. 'I've saved a million,' Sasha says, hopefully shifting his thoughtful gaze from the road lit by night lights to Lisa.

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At the same time, a dark SUV tails the taxi, and somewhere along the route of the 'night cruiser,' a bloody trail of a maniac killer, who already has several victims, stretches out. And all of them are young girls of Lisa's age.

From such a tense plot setup, it becomes clear that this ride could be the last for Sasha or Lisa. At least, that's how the intriguing part of the film 'Centaur' looks on the script page, but in reality, after the first 20 minutes of storytelling, it becomes clear—who is the victim, who is the villain, and who is just there. The accents placed here and there are not misleading, but the resolution still surprises, though not greatly.

But this does not spoil the solid, deeply genre-driven creation that came from the pen of screenwriter Mikhail Zubko, who worked on the series about Major Cherkasov's work ('Mosgaz'), and the competent, precisely dosed direction of Kirill Kemnits ('Zombie Holidays'), overseen from the producer's chair by ('Hardcore Henry', 'Nobody').

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It is thanks to the latter that 'Centaur' acquired rare but excellently staged action scenes, adrenaline-fueled chases through night roads, and inventive fights, in which Sasha's taxi plays the main role until the very finale. Inseparable from the driver and effectively replacing his injured lower body. Hence the name—'Centaur'.

And while the film's concept itself looks quite original, the artistic techniques here are rather immodestly copied from long-celebrated representatives of the genre. Well, who wouldn't recognize in the silent Sasha with a murky past ('injured in a race,' 'wounded during contract service'—the versions of how he got hurt are always different) the hero of Jason Statham in 'The Transporter' or the car ace Daniel from 'Taxi,' not to mention the aforementioned Travis Bickle, whose image here seems key. And the neon-lit night city from 'Drive,' or the car that embodies all the functions of the main character, as in King's 'Christine'? There are plenty of examples, but there is no desire to criticize for this, given how masterfully and with what gusto the filmmakers created their 'Centaur'.

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And, perhaps, the lion's share of the film's success is Yura Borisov, whose chiseled appearance and minimalist facial expressions fit perfectly into the overall atmosphere of the film's nocturnal poetics. The on-screen chemistry between him and Talyzina's character is felt from the very first minutes on screen. And the compact hour and a half of storytelling is quite enough for the characters to develop and to include a couple of juicy shootouts. What else is needed to become one of the hits of the Russian box office this summer? Nothing more.