O chyom govoryat muzhchiny

What Men Talk About" is a Russian comedy film about how four friends, adult men played by famous Russian actors Leonid Barats, Alexander Demidov, Kamil Larin and Rostislav Khaid got together to go and then went to Odessa after all. It's basically two hours of several men trash-talking about life and everything in the world. I didn't laugh much. Well, in general gulp and gulp and I did not see anything funny there. In my opinion, it's a boring movie. Discuss whether to translate the grandmother across the street or not, or if she is a bad grandmother and it is not necessary to translate.

This film indeed is a little gem of men's views on the world around them. But, as a Russian-speaking person born and living in Russia, i can't help thinking that What Men Talk About can hardly be as fulfilling for a foreigner as it is for people from ex-USSR. Yes, the general concept of the humor used here could be translated into other languages, but the cultural aspects of the interactions between people, the tiny insightful things put here and there all along the film - they are too rooted in the Soviet and post-Soviet culture to be adequately interpreted by those who haven't at least lived here for a while.

It's exactly the same as with any other film or TV show from any other country that's deeply connected with its culture or collective subconscious. For example, one needs to be an American or be in a tight connection with the American culture to enjoy The Daily Show or The Family Guy to the fullest. Yeah, that would still be fun if translated to another language, but without the deeper understanding of the cultural references you'll be like a guest on an inside joke party. Which means you would still probably enjoy it, just not as much as the rest of the guys.

Take Sex and the City, change the main characters to Russian men, add Seinfeldian and Woody Allenesque observations about relationships with the opposite sex, and the quirkiness/instant flashbacks of modern sitcoms like Cougar Town, and you get What Men Talk About. It is a road movie about 4 Moscow men going to a rock concert in Odessa, Ukraine. As they take turns driving the car, they swap stories, observations, fantasies, and just have fun. Much of the movie happens in flashbacks and fantasy sequences. During their conversations, they end up talking about a variety of topics which include women, silverware, women, modern art, and women.

The film is funny and smart enough that it, in this reviewer's eyes, goes beyond the typical Hollywood comedies, and would would not be out of place in an art house movie theater.

If there is one flaw, it is that most/if not all dialogue has one "voice" to it, as it were - that is, by the end of the movie, you will probably not remember who told which story. This is somewhat of a contrast to Sex and the City, where the main character are -perhaps too artificially - made to be quite different from one another. But then again, maybe the approach in What Men Talk About is more realistic as people are more likely to be friends with people who are similar to them.

I am a Russian speaker and saw it in Russian, but other than a couple of jokes regarding the similarity between Russian and Ukrainian languages, and one or two Russian pop culture references, this should translate rather well. Not sure if this will ever be seen by many outside of Russia, but if you get a chance to see this, and you enjoy, say, Woody Allen's films (especially, the "early, funny ones"), then you might just like this one.

Just saw it with my girlfriend from Ukraine and she like a lot even if its for "men", i think its smart movie with good humor, better than some Hollywood same old same old movies...

I like the photography of the movie, truly show the beauty of these 2 countries and some traditional food and stuff like that.

Really enjoyable and any man can feel related at least to one situation if not more, relax and have a good laugh ...

PS: just be careful of subtitles if you are not Russian speaker, sometimes people get lazy and they don't really get the true sense of what they are translating

One of the reviewers was right, this movie has something in common with Sex and the City only with male characters. We have here four friends who go on a road trip together and talk about women and other things in life.

And it is pretty entertaining. I said it is a movie for men because I would think they would connect more to it. Me and my friends don't talk like that. But as a woman I also enjoyed it. Lots of nice humor and some good friendships in it. I think I will show this movie to my boyfriend to see how he feels, maybe he likes it even more than me like I predicted.