I have no idea if I want to characterize Danila as a hero or something else. i would not characterize him as a villain because he has many endearing qualities.
He is definitely a family man and he is willing to help people out with the money he earns. He is also honest, as can be seen by him promising not to kill those two people.
While all these things are positive, they are positive in a negative light. Yeah he spares two people, but kills several others in cold blood. He also gives money to a stoner and keeps most of the money for himself.
He seems to believe that violence will get him what he wants. He kills or hurts people in order to get his way. We are not supposed to think this is the proper way to do things, which is why I think Sveta is shown to go back with her husband. Otherwise, we would have seen Danila benefit from all of the violence he uses.
The most interesting thing to me about this film was the power structure. There is no longer a strong, or even a weak, Soviet state. The government is hardly represented and not represented at all in St. Petersburg. We see the local cops in Danila’s home town, but that is the extent of the presence of the government. In the past we have seen Commissars and government housing. These are indicators of a strong state. The mob has become the rulers of the cities. They control who is selling things on the street. Danila, instead of getting a job through the government, now gets a job through the mob.
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You're quite right: Yeltsin's 90's were a power vacuum in complete contrast to the many decades that had preceded them. In retrospect, it's really fortunate that the crime remained predominantly "organized" rather than "unorganized."
In any case, for better or worse Russia in the present decade seems to have moved definitively in the opposite direction--towards a centripetally based, centralizing power structure.
As strange as it seems Danny is a hero in this movie because he doesn't go around mindlessly killing people, he knows what he is going to do and he plans on the best way to do it. You have to admit setting of the home made fireword behind the chechen to cause a heart attack was a great move on his part. And I know I said this to you in class, but this movie had a very "Boondock Saints" Feel to it, with what Danny was killing for
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