Major Grom: Plague Doctor (2021)

Major Grom: Plague Doctor feels like a comic book come roaring to life in the streets of St. Petersburg—slick, propulsive, and powered by a hero who’s equal parts bulldozer and boy scout, too stubborn to let the system off the hook. Director Oleg Trofim stages action with a confident sense of geography and momentum, mixing bruising brawls, chase energy, and a striking masked-vigilante aesthetic that gives the film its own pulpy signature. Beneath the fireworks, it taps into a satisfying moral pressure cooker about corruption and public anger, without losing its sense of fun or its human spark between Grom and the people pulled into his orbit. It’s not for viewers who want subtle, quiet crime drama—the violence can get intense and the tone is boldly heightened—but if you’re in the mood for a crowd-pleasing, high-octane thriller with personality, this one delivers.

Major Grom: Plague Doctor clearly wants to be Russia’s homegrown superhero-thriller: a slick, comic-book cop story with a masked vigilante, big stunts, and a city-wide moral panic about corruption. The problem is the execution often feels louder than it is smart—set pieces crash and burn with enthusiasm, but the tone swings between serious social commentary and pulpy spectacle without fully earning either. If you’re sensitive to “comic-book logic,” convenient twists, or a protagonist whose recklessness is treated as charm, this may test your patience. Still, if you can meet it on its own terms, there’s energetic action, a striking villain concept, and a St. Petersburg backdrop that gives the chaos some style.