It’s scary how films can seed our mind with prejudice. Up until (101 Films, Blu-ray and digital), the only time I’d experienced Kazakhstan was in the movies. Sasha Baron Cohen said that Kazakhs were grubby peasants who drank horse urine and bred in-house. Of course, I never really believed that was true. But had I bothered to look into the real country at the time? Nope. I didn’t even notice that Cohen was speaking in Hebrew and not Kazak. And did I let that stereotype of the country seep into my subconscious? I’m ashamed to say I must have done, because five minutes into , I noted a brief second of ‘surprise’ that such a fabulous and accomplished film could come from such a country. It’s a dazzling horror comedy about three friends on a fishing trip where an ‘ear-meets-fishhook’ accident turns out to be the least of their worries. They stumble onto a man being executed by a gang of thugs and a series of wild set-pieces follows, packed with gory slapstick, laugh-out-loud dialogue and touching, emotional depth. If the Kazakh file in your brain is currently marked ‘Borat’, set yourself right and watch this cracker soon.
