The Fool

The Fool (Дурак, 2014) is a Russian social drama you can watch online on iFILM. Written and directed by Yuri Bykov, with Artyom Bystrov in the lead role alongside Yuri Tsurilo, Natalya Surkova and Darya Moroz.

Plumber Dima Nikitin answers a late call at a crumbling Soviet-era dormitory and spots something that stops him cold: a structural crack running the length of the building. His calculation is fast — 800 residents, hours left, maybe less. He takes it to the city authorities, who happen to be gathered that same night at a birthday dinner. They listen. They understand exactly what an evacuation would expose — years of diverted maintenance funds, the kind of paper trail that ends careers and opens criminal cases. Their answer is not surprising.

Bykov made the film on a tight budget, which somehow makes the pressure feel more real. There are no villains who twirl moustaches here — just people who made small corrupt choices for years and now face the bill. Bleak, precise, and one of the sharper Russian films of the 2010s. Stream The Fool (2014) online on iFILM.