Navalny - Movie Review

Critics Score - 9 of 10

General Audience Score - 8 of 10

When it comes to spy thriller films, most minds probably drift towards the James Bond and Jason Bourne franchises. But there’s also the more subtle spy films with more mystery and espionage as the focus. I’m talking about movies such as Bridge Of Spies, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or the wonderful but sadly overlooked film Breach (2007). The latest documentary film from the joint studios of CNN films and HBO is about the prominent Russian lawyer, opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny. It’s currently available to stream on HBO Max. This fascinating film plays out like a political drama but then morphs into a thriller and spy chase. The real world events that transpire are as entertaining as the best written screenplays from the films I previously mentioned. For those of us that are familiar with the character Alexei Navalny, there’s sure to be details in regards his stand against Vladimir Putin that will keep viewers engaged. For people like myself that had heard the name but not many details around the events the film covers, the film plays out like a real world Bourne film. Not only is this a top-notch documentary, in my humble opinion it’s one of the best films of the year. The Navalny Identity.

SYNOPSIS - We meet Alexei Navalny in an empty restaurant/draft house, the kind of place you’d visit after a long day of work to share a drink with your coworkers. The interviewer soberingly asks Alexei Navalny about what message he’d like to leave in the instance that he is killed. In a beautiful drone shot of a snow-covered, sleepy little German town, we hear Alexei speak about how he was brought here after he was almost killed. He’s been blacklisted by Vladimir Putin and the Russian government, yet he’s purchased a ticket to return home to Moscow on January 17th, 2021. We skip to see him stepping onto the airplane and reporters immediately start swarming him with cameras, phones and a barrage of questions. But then before we get too far ahead of ourselves, the producers smartly go back three years and via videos of Alexei, we get some backstory to understand who this man is and why we should care. We see clips of him calling out Putin, answering questions at rallies and condemning the corruption that’s been a hallmark of the government.

Eventually we meet Alexei Navalny’s wife Yulia as well as his two teenage children and the documentary spins the narrative of Navalny also being a family man. We see him taking walks in the snowy German town with his wife and stopping to feed a donkey that has the propensity to walk over to them as they pass by and eat the treats they bring. When watching documentaries, we tend to accept the things presented to us as organic, naturally occurring events that the camera just happened to record. We don’t often think, maybe the people orchestrating this documentary said, let’s get some footage of you taking a walk. Then they had the treats and said, “here, take this and feed the animals,” in an effort to make this man as likable as possible. But as the documentary continues, we see the fallout of Alexei Navalny after he’s poisoned on a plane and subsequently rushed to a hospital. We then watch clips of Russian state controlled media as they purport all kinds of things ranging from Navalny having a medical condition, he had overdosed on drugs, drank too much moonshine the night before the flight or was on American antidepressants that are illegal in Russia. I know nothing about this man, he could be a greedy, power hungry, conniving person, he could be mean to that donkey he was feeding earlier and have a terrible relationship with his wife. I have no clue. I’ve not done any auxiliary research on the man, so I cannot proclaim him a saint, the savior of Russia or anything else. But my impression was that Alexei Navalny was a decent and reasonable man that would help Russia, in many ways, to emerge out of the darkness that currently envelops the country and into the light of the current century. Navalny’s character seems to be more aligned with our western thinking, thus the appeal, but with Putin responsible for the deaths of countless children and civilians, not to mention the soldiers, it really wouldn’t take much to improve the ruling situation of the country’s current regime.

This film was created before the war in Ukraine began, I was able to see it back at the Sundance Film Festival in late January. But now that it was released over Memorial Day on HBOMax to the general public, it’s become even more relevant and timely. The war crimes and atrocities that Putin has orchestrated have indelibly left a scar on the nation of Ukraine, his own people and even humanity itself. I’m no political analyst, as I mentioned, I know very little about Alexei Navalny other than what was presented in this documentary. He may not be the ultimate solution or final cure to the disease that plagues Russia in this 21st century, but it sure seems like he’d be a good place to start. The way the film’s story is structurally arranged works so well, we start at the end, go back and get into Putin’s attack on him as well as the mystery surrounding it, then a search entails to find out what happened with the attack and how it was carried out. It narratively works as well as most spy themed suspense/thriller screenplays. The original score has an ominous, up-tempo beat that fits in well with the thrilling yet somber direction the film moves in. Having the courage to speak up and speak out against an oppressive regime and governmental authority is always the right thing to do, even if it comes with great risk and sometimes with great personal cost to oneself. Without spoiling the ending or discussing where Alexei Navalny is now, to say that this film is both extraordinarily entertaining and a triumph of documentary filmmaking is no exaggeration. Make it a point to see this film.

SUMMARY - This documentary is as riveting as many thriller/suspense filled blockbusters and will even reward most of the average and casual cinema-goers. But the real good Navalny can do is to inspire, both people in Western culture as well as those in Russia and elsewhere, to stand up against corruption and fight for the rights and freedoms that all humans should enjoy.