The Ransom of Color Chief

"The Ransom of Color Chief" (2012) is a Russian family comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Director Yegor Anashkin transplanted the O. Henry story "The Ransom of Red Chief" into contemporary Moscow, keeping the original's most uncomfortable point: some children are simply more dangerous than any adult who tries to handle them.

Dmitry Dyuzhev, Maria Mironova, and Grigory Siyatvinda play the grown-ups who discover this the hard way. The boy at the center of the chaos is an unrepentant little menace who turns every attempt to control him into a fresh disaster. Funny and recognisable, with a sharper edge about the gap between how adults imagine children and how children actually operate. Watch "The Ransom of Color Chief" online on iFILM.