Just three months before the end of his seven year prison sentence in France, Viktor Lambert (Gerard Depardieu, THE LAST METRO) learns that his son Jeremie (Jean Baptiste Fillon) - who was left in the care of his Chechen ballet company choreographer friend Soulimann (Eli Danker, THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL) - has been killed. Returning to Moscow, Viktor learns from Soulimann that Jeremie got involved in drugs, was forced into rehab, and then met an artist named Katerina (Polina Kuzminskaya) who broke up with him the day before he was murdered. He learns from a reluctant Katerina, who is pregnant with his son's child – that she left him because he became obsessed with money and got into something illegal. Torturing Jeremie's former dealer, he learns that Jeremie was working for Italian lawyer Claudio Martelli (Marcello Mazzarella, TIME REGAINED) and was smuggling diamonds on behalf of his client. When Martelli refuses to give up the identity of his client, Viktor tells him to pass on the message that he will kill them all. When Martelli's client – sadistic jewel smuggler Anton Belinsky (Denis Karasyov, MUTE WITNESS) – goes after Katerina to send a message to Viktor, looks to old flame Alexandra (Elizabeth Hurley, PERMANENT MIDNIGHT) for Martelli's weaknesses in order to discover the Belinsky's identity. Viktor must also dodge relentless Inspector Plutova (Evgeniya Akhremenko) who believes that Viktor was responsible for a theft from the Museum of Modern Art ten years ago and still has the painting.

The French/Russian noirish action film VIKTOR is attractively-mounted but ultimately a rather run-of-the-mill revenge flick. Depardieu and Hurley are game while Denker lends the film some gravitas with his stony expression, and Karasyov is appropriately over-the-top; however, all of the foreign actors come across awkwardly at times performing in English. The action scenes are technically-slick but the emotional aspect of the story - Viktor mourning for his son - is rather shallowly-rendered, and the climax seems rushed with an unsatisfactory denouement.