On The Third Step

A group of criminals meet in order to discuss what went wrong with an assassination attempt.

Three gangsters known as Kid (Gazizullin), ABC (Grab) and Sleeve (Lymarev) were ordered to kill a murder witness in Moscow, whose knowledge threatened to put crime boss Brute (Gor) in prison. The mission was a failure and now it is believed that there is an informer among them. Brute has summoned the three accomplices to a building, with the intention of finding out who among them is the traitor. Once the three of them are inside a room, Brute informs them that they have a short amount of time to figure out who betrayed them, or they will all be killed.

This twenty-minute-long thriller from Russia has a plot that bears similarities to Reservoir Dogs: Following a ruined criminal act, a bunch of outlaws gather at a certain location and try to determine who among them is the double-crosser. Like Tarantino's film, the majority of the narrative takes place inside a room, with the protagonists questioning each other and attempting to discover the snitch among them. Also, like Tarantino's movie, there are flashbacks of the crime being committed ( in this case that is the murder attempt) and it is shown from the perspective of each of the three collaborators. The screenplay does a great job in building tension and suspense, and just when it seems that everything has been revealed, a clever plot twist arrives.

All the actors deliver strong performances. The three assassins consist of characters who are quite different from each other. The Kid is the least determined of the trio, ABC is the hothead, while Sleeve appears to be the most reasonable. Gor is the one who steals the show as the menacing and bad-tempered crime lord.

Praise goes to Dmitriy Gorevoy for the beautiful cinematography and the soundtrack includes a selection of interesting songs and a dramatic and tense score.

This short thriller is filled with suspense and tense moments and never fails to be gripping. It is a crime story that contains mystery, confrontations, murder, betrayal and shootings and all these features, along with great acting and an intriguing plot make this film an admirable achievement.