Director Andrey Zvyagintsev gives us a worm’s-eye view of crushing local tyranny in Russia’s arctic north. Kolya (Aleksei Serebryakov) is a car mechanic with a modest property on prime real estate: a beautiful spot on the Barents Sea, but crooked mayor Vadim (Roman Madyanov) wants this land, and hits Kolya with a compulsory purchase order. Kolya’s old army buddy Dimitri (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), now a slick Moscow lawyer, has an incriminating file on Vadim that he promises will induce Vadim to back down, but attempting to blackmail Russia’s well-connected gangster class is fraught with danger.