On Monday, October 5, the NTV TV channel aired the series "Old Shots" with Maria Shukshina, Boris Galkin, Dmitry Astrakhan and Boris Shcherbakov.
According to the plot of the tape, Lieutenant Colonel of the Investigative Committee Alexander Tokarev (Shukshin), as punishment for one annoying misunderstanding, is sent to serve in the department for investigating unsolved crimes established under the Investigative Committee.
The employees of this unit will have to deal with cases 20-30 years ago.
At the insistence of her superiors, Tokareva is recruiting three professionals much older than herself under her wing.
These people were the best at what they did until they retired.
Now operative Grigory Barkhatov (Shcherbakov) and two investigators, Ivan Dolin (Galkin) and Boris Lane (Astrakhan), are subordinate to the heroine.
Everyone on this team is of separate interest.
The image of Tokareva may seem unnatural at first, but he is thought out to the smallest detail.
For example, the lieutenant colonel is not shy about strong expressions and generally tries to play according to the rules of the male team.
It is quite logical: she has an atypical job for a woman.
The scriptwriters emphasized the strong character of the heroine, among other things, with a “courageous” name.
© Shot from the series "Old frames" (2019)
Barkhatov, a famous seducer, turned out to be bright as well.
Even in retirement, he has not lost his grip and regularly gathers three ex-wives and daughters from each of them for dinner parties.
But to perceive a woman as a boss is difficult for Barkhatov.
He also adheres to adventurous and not always legal methods of doing business, but many of his ideas benefit the department.
The character of Dmitry Astrakhan, Boris Lane, has the richest background.
He agreed to return to work for personal reasons.
Many years ago, Lane's brilliant career was ruined when one of the suspects died in jail.
Since then, the investigator has suffered from psychological problems.
He hopes, taking advantage of his official position, to sort out this situation and improve his personal life.
Ivan Dolin, in turn, is distinguished by discretion and wisdom.
He tries to resolve conflicts peacefully.
Dolin is lonely and still yearns for his deceased wife.
The creators of the series used the age difference of the characters as a source of comic.
She is the cause of small conflicts in the team, mostly played out in a humorous manner.
So, Tokareva is horrified by the illegal methods of colleagues (in particular, hidden audio recording), but later decides to teach them to use mobile phones for the same purposes.
The filmmakers also focused on the complexity of interaction between colleagues, who, due to their age, are reluctant to compromise: for example, Lane, after a quarrel with his wife, is located at home near the Valley and begins to dispose of other people's things without hesitation.
There is also a permanent hero in the plot with mainly entertainment functions - Tokareva's chief Colonel Selivanov performed by Ivan Agapov.
He does business dishonestly (he makes decisions “regardless of real guilt”), but he is not at all shy about it.
At the same time, Agapov falls short of the villain: ridiculous initiatives like a tour of the UK building for popular bloggers make him a comic character.
© Shot from the series "Old frames" (2019)
"Old Shots", like most detective projects, is filmed in the form of a procedural drama - each episode begins with a new case, while from series to series, viewers watch the development of the characters' own storylines.
The scriptwriters worked out the characters in detail, but still made some plot flaws.
So, in the first episode, the case solved, it would seem, served to rally the team.
However, by the beginning of the second episode, between Tokareva and her subordinates, the same contradictions are observed as when they met.
"Old cadres" are focused mainly on the age audience.
The series is not overloaded with tragic details, the narration turned out to be calm, measured - the plot does not include scenes of chasing or arresting criminals.
Nevertheless, thanks to a well-thought-out detective component, the action of the tape develops dynamically.
New twists and turns appear in seemingly simple stories every now and then, so it's not boring to watch the progress of investigations.
By the way, "Old Personnel" is an adaptation of the British project "New Tricks".
However, this information fades into the background: in the fresh feed, the Russian flavor is more than enough, and it looks like an original product.