Film companies Goldfield Entertainment and Fenix Cinema Production, together with the Vesta company and the film distribution company Atmosphere Kino, announced the start of filming of the large-scale spy action film «Recruited» with the star of the films The Flying Ship, The Dungeon and The Man from Nowhere Alexander Metelkin in the lead roles. The director is Ivan Arkhipov.
Andrei Romanov (Alexander Metelkin) finds himself at the epicenter of a clash between Russian and Western intelligence services. Together with his team of top Russian special agents, he is recruited by GRU officer Maxim Kolosov (Ivan Okhlobystin) for a special mission into enemy territory. The group's goal is to find out what is happening in a secret laboratory near the border of the country, where work is underway on a new biological weapon. Andrey also has a personal goal — revenge. The enemy's team is led by his father's killer. Andrei's group is completely secret; almost no one knows about its true purpose. Everything does not go according to plan when it becomes clear that there is a «mole» among them. Suspicion falls on Andrei himself. Kolosov will have to make the most difficult decision in his life: trust intelligence data and destroy the agent, or, in spite of everything, in memory of his friendship with Andrei’s father, give the guy a chance to complete the task. The lives of millions of people depend on this decision…
«The script for „Recruited“ attracted me with the opportunity to play a real action hero, deep, with a dramatic fate. We will try to make the film a success in terms of drive and spectacle. Spy movies are always at the intersection of action and psychologism. My hero constantly finds himself in extreme situations, but at the same time remains himself, and the viewer is always interested in following such characters,» said Alexander Metelkin.
«The central theme of „Recruited“ is the struggle of each person with the „demons“ within himself, with the pernicious ideas of the superiority of some people over others. We live in a world where truth and lies mix and change places. People who just yesterday were your like-minded people suddenly catch the „virus“ of lies, turning into real „demons“. But the most important thing is that it is precisely such qualities as honor, dignity, loyalty and friendship that help defeat the enemy and stand on the side of good and justice,» says Andrei Panteleev, the author of the idea and script for the film «Recruited.»
"When selecting the cast, we relied on the actors to share our ideas and also have the most professional skills and qualities. We did tests, castings, ensemble tests, and our cast turned out to be wonderful," shared the film’s director Ivan Arkhipov.
«This project is especially important and close to us because it is written based on real events. The main idea of the film is that true friendship, which has been forged over the years, helps to distinguish truth from lies. Neither nationality, nor different characters and guidelines will break real relationships between people, but on the contrary will help prevent a big tragedy,» said the film’s producer Alesya Panteleeva.
«This film is about friendship. I value this feeling in myself, I know how to make friends, and if after watching our film the viewer thinks about how important friendship is in our lives, in relationships between people, then I can safely say that we were able to reach out and convey the meaning inherent in this film to our audience,» comments the film’s producer and actor Alexander Zlatopolsky.
The filming process is divided into two main blocks and will last until September. The main and largest action scenes are planned to be filmed in the summer and, as the creators promise, the mission to make a spectacular spy movie for the Russian audience and do without «cranberries» is very feasible.
«Recruited is a dynamic and twisted spy action game. Pictures of this genre rarely appear on screens, but they have a lot of fans in our country. We have assembled a powerful and brutal cast led by Alexander Metelkin. The viewer will get a really cool spectacle. Our team really wants „Recruited“ to become a genre event, and fans of spy films will be satisfied. As part of the promotion of the film, together with the distributor Atmosphere Kino, we are planning many interesting features and a truly driving advertising campaign that will become noticeable to the target audience of the film,» noted the film’s producer Vladimir Permyakov.
«I love adventure, and the film „Recruited“ has an interesting and unexpected script. It hooked me and I hope it will hook the audience too. There are very few films in this genre, especially with such twisted intrigue and good, ambiguous images of the heroes. This is definitely not a „caramel“ movie,» emphasized Ivan Okhlobystin.
In the cast of the film, Alexander Metelkin and Ivan Okhlobystin were accompanied by famous Russian actors: Alexander Zlatopolsky, Danila Yakushev, Ivan Kokorin, Alexey Kravchenko, Igor Zhizhikin, Oleg Taktarov, Vadim Andreev, Nika Zdorik and Anastasia Chernikova.
The film «Recruited» is scheduled for theatrical release in the summer of 2025. Distributor — Atmosfera Kino.