Barons of Crime (Russian: Воры в законе, romanized: Vory v zakone) is a 1988 Soviet crime thriller film directed by Yuri Kara[1][2][3] based on the stories of Fazil Iskander.[4]
The film tells about the confrontation between two leaders of criminal gangs from one coastal city.[4]
The film ranks 99th among domestic films in terms of attendance in the entire history of the Soviet film distribution with 39 million viewers.[4]
According to literary critic Natalia Ivanova, "Iskander's complex, ambiguous, genuinely artistic and socially caring thought was turned into a completely unambiguous action movie".[6] In 1988, in the December issue of the Cinema Viewer's Companion, film critic Aleksei Erokhin stressed that director Yuri Kara had shot an up-to-date acute social action film about the Soviet mafia and corruption.[7]
Nomination for the Nika Award in the Best Supporting Role category (Zinovy Gerdt).