The Half Life of Timofey Berezin (2006)

Director:

Scott Z. Burns

Writers (WGA):

Scott Z. Burns (screenplay)
Ken Kalfus (short story "PU-239")

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

His family's future depends on one unstable element.

Plot:

A worker at a Russian nuclear facility gets exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. In order to provide for his family, he steals some plutonium and sets out to sell it on Moscow's black market with the help of an incompetent criminal. |

Plot Keywords:

Black Market | Plutonium | Terminal Illness | Russia | Radiation Poisoning

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Paddy Considine	...	Timofey
Oscar Isaac	...	Shiv
Valeriu Pavel Dan	...	Red Army Hero
Kenneth Bryans	...	Prusokov
Radha Mitchell	...	Marina
Danya Baryshnikov	...	Tolya
Connor McIntyre	...	Facility Director
Derek Hutchinson	...	Facility Deputy
Jason Flemyng	...	Vlad
Jordan Long	...	Yegor
Xenia Alina Grigore	...	Lap Girl
Mélanie Thierry	...	Oxsana
Constantin Barbulescu	...	Dmitri
Oana Cojocaru	...	Svetlana
Stefan Iancu	...	Andrei

Also Known As:

Pu-239 (International: English title) (new title) (USA) (new title)
PU-239 (USA) (working title (TV title))

MPAA:

Rated R for language, violence, sexual content and brief drug use.

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:R | Australia:MA | Argentina:18 | Singapore:NC-16

Filming Locations:

Bucharest, Romania

Company:

Beacon Pictures

Goofs:

Plot holes: Tim states many times that his hometown is not on the map, which makes it impossible to send his letter home.

Quotes:

Timofey: [voiceover] I have been thinking about what hurts more: the jar or the pins. And I think I can tell you that it is not the pins. Because the monarch in the jar is already dead when it comes to the pins. At some point things stop hurting; and from inside the jar, with eyes that see in all directions, maybe it is possible to look into the future, well beyond the pins, to where the compass in your head tells you that you need to go.

Soundtrack:

Soul in the Bottle

Movie shown on HBO as "PU-239"

This is what Indie films are all about. An excellent flick, acting, plot, script, and all else very well done. On HBO this movie is billed as PU-239 so keep an eye out for it, but be careful what you inhale while watching it!

Having been a physics major I can state that as far as the science goes the movie is loyal. Science, however, is just background. This movie is really about the human spirit continually battling against despair; the human condition and the lengths we will go to kill one another and to love one another; human ignorance and human intelligence, but without humility, and the trouble it will get us all into; and "in the end, everything decays into lead", like bullets, and the fact that no one gets out alive.