By Dan Skip Allen

“Two Prosecutors” is a period piece set in the early 19th century. In the early 19th century, there were at least a handful of evil, if you will,  regimes in the world. Germany and its Reich weren’t the only ones. There was also the regime of Joseph Stalin, otherwise known as communists who took over Russia from the Bolsheviks earlier in the century. This story revolves around the late 1930s Russia. Specifically involving a prison and a prisoner who tries to get help from a prosecutor straight out of college. This is a story I wasn’t exactly familiar with, but it’s a story that resembles a lot of things going on in America in the future. It’s a very prophetic story about what started to happen around the world in other countries. 

Kornev (Alexander Kuznetsov) gets a message from an old prisoner, Stepniak (Aleksandr Fillipenko), in a Russian prison in 1937. This is the era of Joseph Stalin, so there are forces at hand that are trying to put down the previous group. The prosecutor gets the message from the old man whom he visits of what has been happening to him and others who were part of his Bolsheviks. He decides to go above his bosses head to try and get help from the head prosecutor in Russia at the time to try and outsmart the NKVD who are like a secret military police who work for Stalin and his communist regime. With any corrupt country that has been overthrown by a dictator, you never know who is a spy or an ally. It’s hard to determine which is which. 

Totalitarianism is a form of government and political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life. It is considered the most extreme and complete form of authoritarianism, where the state seeks to regulate nearly every aspect of public and private behavior. This is the situation this man is in when he tries to help this prisoner and others who have been treated very badly by these prison guards and the commandant of the prison. He’s in an uphill battle.

This film is based on the novella by Georgy Demidov. A survivor of a Soviet gulag and dissident. He has captured a time in history of one particular country, but you can use this story to represent Germany or other evil regimes who want to keep the opposition of the leader down. They use terms like ASB or Anti-Social Behavior to send men who disagree with them to prison and beat them down by starvation, malnourishment, and beating them into submission. The end all be all is that they want them to sign an agreement to say they are guilty of crimes against the current regime. That’s where this one man came in and went against them. They didn’t like that. No authoritative government likes that. That’s where this story resembles so many other countries, including our own right now. It’s very similar to this.

Even though this film is in color, there is a noir feeling to it. This young prosecutor is constantly looking over his shoulder, wondering who he can trust. Two instances in the movie come to mind where the noir aspects show out. A meeting with a man to get the other prosecutor was very tense and gut-wrenching. Once he finally meets the head prosecutor, that is also a very anxious/nervous scene. Another is a train sequence where the young lawyer is being grilled by two supposed strangers on a train. They end up being more than that. These scenes bring the whole noir feeling of the story to the forefront. It reminded me of classics from the past.

“Two Prosecutors” will give the audience who watch it a little anxiety because of what it will remind them of. Or if people lived long enough, they lived through something similar to what is happening in this story. Germany and the persecution of jews comes to mind and the concentration camps as well. When it comes to communist countries or similar authoritarianism regimes, they’ve been around for a while. This film specifically revolves around totalitarianism. A government that wants to keep its opposition down. Does that remind you of any country? Yeah, I think it does. We’re living in something like this right now, but not on this level yet. This was scary to watch, but it was a sore reminder of what Americans can do to prevent this from getting worse here in our country.

4 stars