Composite Score: 85.07

Featuring: Alexei Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya, Christo Grozev, Dasha Navalnaya, Leonid Volkov, Maria Pevchikh, and Zakhar Navalny

Director: Daniel Roher

Genres: Documentary, Biography, Thriller, Crime

MPAA Rating: R for some language

Box Office: $107,021 worldwide

Why should you Watch This Film?

                Navalny is the CNN/HBO Max documentary about Russian politician Alexei Navalny and his recovery from an assassination attempt and the subsequent investigation into that attempt. The film follows Navalny – a leading political opponent of Russian “President” Vladimir Putin – as he investigates corruption in the Russian ruling class and attempts to start a grassroots movement to win an election against Russia’s de facto dictator before being poisoned and being forced to flee to Germany to recover and discover the truth behind his attempted murder. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at this past year’s Oscars and has been celebrated for its presentation of a truly thrilling true crime/espionage story from Eastern Europe.

Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?

                Alexei Navalny is a Russian politician, and as such, I don’t know how benevolent his ideals really are, so I hesitate to fully endorse Navalny – the film or the man – as perfectly ideal. The documentary does a lot to compare Navalny’s goals with the practices of Putin and his government, always leaning on Navalny’s anti-authoritarian ideal as what makes him a “good” politician. Here’s the deal, anyone looking to reduce the power of Russia’s corrupt central government and, specifically, their de facto dictator Putin should be elevated by the media; however, I don’t know that we should go all-in and paint him as this perfect white knight standing against the corruption of Russian politics, since we haven’t actually seen him do anything with any political power. This hesitation comes from a brief moment in the film where he’s questioned about appearing at a rally with whatever Russia’s version of neo-Nazis are, and he basically gives this political response that, when you’re trying to build a coalition against the establishment, you take whatever allies you can get, and I’m just not totally certain that that sentiment should be extended to include Nazis and various other reactionary groups. Do I think the film’s story is really cool? Yes. Do I think that Navalny is better than Putin? Absolutely. I just don’t get why the filmmakers can’t fully embrace the grayness that is inherent to politics and especially the politics of Eastern Europe.

So wait, why should you Watch This Film?

                What makes Navalny an award-worthy documentary, though, is the story that it follows. It’s really an espionage thriller couched in the trappings of a documentary. It gives you political intrigue, assassination attempts, clues, investigations, bumbling agents, European countryside, Russian accents – you know, all the things you could possibly ask for in a high-quality espionage thriller. It just happens to also be the real account of actual events as they unfold for real people. The filmmakers have done a good job of giving the film an air of suspense with their edits and interviews, never fulling giving the audience a full accounting of the story until it shows up on screen. (Granted, people who followed the story as it broke will probably already know what’s coming, but those looking to get the story from the documentary receive the added benefit of its unfolding in entertaining fashion.) It really is great that things worked out as well as they did (imprisonment at the end notwithstanding) because it does make for a thrilling documentary, as odd as that might sound. If you’re trying to get into documentaries or trying to get someone else into them, this is one of the most approachable ones because so much of it feels like watching a James Bond or Mission: Impossible film (minus the stunts and explosions).

                Navalny etched its name in cinematic history through the sheer entertainment value of its story, which allows the documentary to play more like a thriller than a biographical film to be shown in some contemporary issues class. Its subject, charismatic and seemingly righteous as the film makes him out to be, still leaves a question mark as to his actual character if he’s ever given power, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t make for an excellent film. It can currently be streamed on Max for anyone who would like to check it out.