Kompromat * * * ½

A Kompromat might sound like a Russian coin laundry, but it's actually an insidious procedure to destroy someone using false allegations and evidence.

In the city of Irkutsk in Siberia there was a division of Alliance Francaise.  (Not an embassy, just an institution to promote all things French. Such offices are all over the world.)  Frenchman Mathieu ran the office. He lived in Irkutsk with his unhappy wife (well she did have to live in Irkutsk) and their child.  One afternoon Mathieu is suddenly arrested and charged with the heinous crime of disseminating child pornography on the internet, and even meddling with his own child!

"Please, be our Guest", say's the FSB

He is thrown into jail and duly beat up by the other inmates, as is their way with child molesters. 

He is assigned a weary but effective lawyer who is successful in getting him out of jail and into home arrest with an ankle bracelet. Then he quietly gives him further advice - Run!

The story moves forward and back in time so we get some idea how Mathieu has ended up in this position.  Earlier he had put on arty theatre production featuring gay love. He met an attractive woman at a night club and was seen dancing flirtatiously with her  It turns out she is married to an incapacitated war hero and her father is in the FSB (ex KGB).  These things are provocative, yes; but hardly that serious; so why would the FSB go out of their way to destroy Mathieu?

We are given clues (the French and Russia are having a bit of an argument over some other matter) but mostly we are as frustrated as Mathieu is.  It's effective.   By not knowing why this is happening, we feel as he does.   

Anyway, the most important thing is the escape, and there is plenty of  tension as Mathieu works his way across Russia with false names, car sharing, and help from others motivated by sympathy and in the case of Svetlana (the woman he danced with) mutual attraction.  

When done effectively the "man on the run" scenario makes for exciting cinema and Kompromat does it very well.