After the end of the Soviet ocuppation, Estonia regains its independence and orders that its gold reserves from Paris be brought back. As the truck with the gold is heading towards the central bank in Tallinn, a group of criminals plans to steal it. Electrician Toivo accepts the offer of two gangsters, Dimitri and Andres, to head towards his power plant and turn off electricity in Tallinn at midnight, but when an official there gets suspicious, Dimitri shoots him, and forces Toivo at gunpoint to redirect the cables into one switch in less than two hours. Snipers shoot 13 police officers at the central bank and then the power blackout plunges the city in dark, so the gangsters steal the truck with gold and head to a cigarette factory to melt it into golden cigarettes. Toivo's wife Maria gives birth, but their baby is in an incubator which doesn't work in the hospital due to the electric blackout. Toivo turns the power back on and helps the police to arrest the gangsters. He then goes to the hospital and awakens Maria in bed.
Written by an American, Paul Kolsby, and directed by a Finn, Ilkka Jarvi-Laturi, this cult heist crime film helped kick-off a new era of modern Estonian cinema. The story itself about a planned robbery of a truck full of gold by turning off the electricity in Tallinn at midnight is standard, yet it is enriched thanks to unusual camera angles, bizarre film shots and examples of black humor—in the opening, as the gangster Mikhail is preparing for the heist in a tower, a waiter informs him that his wife is on the phone, calling him for dinner. "Tell her I'm dead!", Mikhail replies, upon which the waiter holds the phone and inquires again: "She asks if you will be alive for breakfast tomorrow". Another gangster has a 10-inch long "tube" hanging from his ear, which he uses to intermittently cut as to always have a new cigarette to light in his mouth. After the blackout at midnight, two thugs break into a store and shout at the owner, a grandmother, ordering her to give them all their money—and then the grandmother just pulls out a gun and shoots them both. These unexpected moments and sudden plot twists give "Darkness in Tallinn" spark and spice, with enough style to cover up the low budget production. The movie does start to drag in the last third, instead of igniting into a climax, and it is not consistently entertaining, since several moments feel slow or stale. It is also misguided to have the entire movie be filmed in black and white, all until 80 minutes into the film, when Toivo turns on the electricity again, and the movie then suddenly turns into color (!) for the last 15 minutes. Nontheless, the actors are all fine, whereas the authors show a lot of enthusiasm in trying to craft this crime extravaganza.
Grade:++
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