Direction: Oleh Sentsov
Country: Ukraine
First-time actor Serhii Filimonov fits hand-in-glove in the skin of the title character, a fearless anti-hero who is not allowed to go right when he’s been on the wrong side of the fence all his life. His true name is Vova and he never turns his back on a fight, fated to be a take-no-shit gangster who seeks out all the power he can get. From the moment he joins the underworld crime organization in his little Ukrainian town in the ‘90s, a local turf war emerges. On one hand, this gives him the opportunity to gain the respect from other thugs, but on the other, he has to deal with several dangers that monstrously loom in his life. Rhino darkens his soul, inhabits the depths of hell, and can’t even find solace at home anymore.
This is a portrait of a disgraced figure who, softening up his inner rage over the years, articulates feelings of remorse and penitence with difficulty in a film with more heart than brains. Oleh Sentsov directs with an eye for action, but his film crams so much tawdry violence, revenge and savage behavior into its framework that it ends up trapped in its own roundabouts and unexciting narrative. Everything happens too quickly and clichéd, pointing the way to a somewhat predictable wrap-up.
Even generating some character-driven circumstances, Rhino can’t sustain its momentum. Nonetheless, the writer-director keeps the pace moving, focused on a precocious pessimism that comes off as spoiled and shallow. Unfortunately, he never found the perfect formula to make the life of his character cinematically noteworthy.
