The series “Undercover Taxi”: the car and the dog outplayed the people

The series “Undercover Taxi”: the car and the dog outplayed the people

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New generation TV detective

Again St. Petersburg, again cops and bandits in tourist and not so touristic locations. The series “Undercover Taxi” has moved from streaming to air and does not look quite like a typical TV detective story. And it’s not just the lively soundtrack from rapper Loc-Dog.

Again St. Petersburg, again cops and bandits in tourist and not so touristic locations. The series “Undercover Taxi” has moved from streaming to air and does not look quite like a typical TV detective story. And it’s not just the lively soundtrack from rapper Loc-Dog.

Police Lieutenant Alexei Turbin has a strong reputation as a magnet for trouble. Due to his heightened sense of justice, his colleagues have a lot of complaints against him, but his ability to be at the epicenter of events makes him an ideal candidate for participation in an experimental police program. An operative disguised as a taxi driver patrols the streets without attracting much attention. The main target is a gang terrorizing the city, and Turbin has personal scores to settle with these villains.

There are a great many series about police officers with a personal interest in the investigation, but the genre nevertheless does not stand still, and “Undercover Taxi” can be called a detective of a new generation. The novelty is primarily in the character. He is young, charismatic, somewhat reminiscent of comic book heroes, and against the backdrop of “Balabol” and other “Cops” he’s just like an advanced smartphone among his dad’s dialers. There’s also a cool car that will soon turn into a transforming robot, as well as a dog that can give you a Phillips-head screwdriver.

If the creators of series like “Gangster Petersburg” clearly tried to play “The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed” and other Soviet classics, then “Undercover Taxi” was most likely made under the impression of Hollywood cinema in the spirit of “Baby Driver” or a local comic book movie “ Major Thunder.” Perhaps all this is reminiscent of a mutiny on a ship, because other creators of detective series are again looking for inspiration in retro and Soviet classics are once again a hot trend.

However, not everything is so neglected. After all, the main thing is not the style, but an interesting film. The success of “The Sniffer,” a series set in a kind of Gotham City where the heroes are almost supermen living in glass towers, is very indicative here. However, from a detective point of view, it turned out to be far from boring, the project was delayed for four seasons, and Kirill Kyaro, who played the main role of an expert with a perfect sense of smell, became a very recognizable and sought-after actor.

There is a suspicion that with “Undercover Taxi” everything is not so promising. Probably, the creators of the series got it right with the casting. The star of “Molodezhka” and “Fizruk” Dmitry Vlaskin is really a policeman from the comics. He is expressively silent, holds a weapon convincingly, even dresses as if he were filming an advertisement for outfits for real men. Victoria Maslova, who played Turbin’s colleague, is somewhat similar to the main character of Atomic Blonde, a girl with a decisive voice and a willingness to put the villain to the sword. Kirill Grebenshchikov has always succeeded in characters from whom it is not clear what to expect, and this time he is also good in this image.

However, in addition to chases and shootouts, the series includes dialogue, and this is where things get weird. On the one hand, the writers’ intention to make the characters’ lines proportional to the volume of circles for text in comics can be taken as a stylistic sophistication. The demonstrative cliched nature of the replicas themselves is a little more alarming. Is this biased towards a neural network? Or is it really the work of artificial intelligence? Should we take this as meta-irony or did someone just not give a damn?

One way or another, it has been a long time since they spoke such amazingly limited language on the federal airwaves. But if this is a way to rejuvenate the audience, then such an experiment should be treated with the utmost care. Maybe it will work out.

Other signs of the local detective – the single-celled simplicity of the villains and some police officers, criminals who torture the victim exactly at the moment when the operatives pass by, and everything like that – look even funny and bring the series even closer to the comic book style. The reactive development of the plot (each episode has an investigation with a finale and a step-by-step revelation of the main storyline) is also very helpful here. But decisive steps are still lacking.

Still, the yellow car really should turn into a robot, and the dog named Baton simply has to become a full-fledged operative with a service weapon. Almost like the angry pug in the third episode of Men in Black. Then we can seriously talk about the second season.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29249 dated April 3, 2024

Newspaper headline:
Post-cop syndrome

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