The Russian Game

The Russian Game (2007) is Pavel Chukhray's comedy, loosely drawn from Gogol's play The Gamblers, and you can watch online on iFILM. A slick Italian card cheat rolls into the Russian provinces, sure he can get rich off the locals' good nature.

At first the visitor believes he can clean out anyone at the table. Then, in a dusty backwater tavern, he runs into three homegrown swindlers who suggest a truce — why fight when they could pool their tricks for one enormous score? He agrees, and that's where the real game begins: a round of play where it's impossible to tell who is fleecing whom. The more charming the con artist gets, the tighter the trap closes around him.

Giuliano Di Capua plays the foreign gambler, with Sergei Garmash, Sergei Makovetsky and Andrei Merzlikin working the angles against him. Chukhray turns Gogol's stage piece into a juicy visual joke about a swindler who picked the wrong country to outsmart. A great pick for anyone who loves trickster comedies with a hidden bottom and dialogue worth chewing on. Stream The Russian Game (2007) online on iFILM.