Tarantino was wrong – Paul Dano is a star opposite Jude Law’s Vladimir Putin

The Wizard of the Kremlin presents the curious offering of Jude Law as Vladimir Putin, an unlikely casting for anyone – least of all the charming leading man in Alfie and The Holiday.

But while this film from French director Olivier Assayas, which premiered last year at Venice Film Festival, stumbles a few times, Law puts in an assured, somewhat uncanny performance.

It’s fitting for an actor who, freed from being considered merely a heartthrob, can continue one of the most promising eras of his career and sink his teeth into character roles.

He clearly wants to make that statement with this choice – first, he was an overweight, ulcer-riddled Henry VIII in 2023’s Firebrand, and now he is the warmongering dictator ruling as Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.

But Law isn’t actually the main character in the film: that would be (fictional) Vadim Baranov, played by Paul Dano and thought to be inspired by Vladislav Surkov, Putin’s former deputy chief of staff and presidential assistant.

It’s lovely to see Dano in the lead, a deserving actor of true multitudes – don’t listen to Quentin Tarantino and his uncalled-for talent assassination of him last year – even if his character becomes too much of a cipher towards the end.

Just like in Little Miss Sunshine, The Batman and (shh, Quentin) There Will Be Blood, among many others, Dano quietly immerses himself in a fresh challenge, this time portraying a man hell-bent on leaving his mark on history.

While starting off as an experimental theatre director revelling in the excesses and creative possibilities of 90s post-Soviet Russia, Baranov will become instrumental to Putin’s political career – so much so that a well-respected American author (Jeffrey Wright) is interviewing him during his retirement at the start of the film, in a bog-standard framing device.

Baranov, previously known as ‘the Wizard of Kremlin’ and also ‘the new Rasputin’, settles in to recount his life and career, starting with a wild house party featuring a naked sub being led around on a chain like a dog – which is where he meets Ksenia (Alicia Vikander), a free spirit and his love interest.

Despite the presence of several real figures and real historical events over the past 25-odd years, The Wizard of the Kremlin still begins with a fictional disclaimer though – I guess you never can be too careful.

We cycle through other seasons in his life and characters he meets, such as the gregarious but vulgar banker Dmitri Sidorov (The Sandman’s Tom Sturridge, injecting a welcome shot of energy with his madcap performance) before he enters his reality TV producer phase and encounters Boris Berezovsky.

It’s Berezovsky who introduces Baranov to Putin, then just a civil servant and director of KGB predecessor FSB, because they’re looking for a puppet to send straight to the top of the government.

They, of course, vastly underestimate Putin, with Berezovsky even sniffing: ‘He’s no rocket scientist, but he’ll do just fine.’

We’re made to wait almost an hour for Law’s grand reveal as Putin, but the subtle wig and make-up allow him the ability to perform facial gymnastics.

He absolutely nails the pouting bottom lip and furrowed brow expressions of the politician to an almost unnerving degree, while also carefully mastering Putin’s contained but aggressively macho way of holding himself.

My only niggle is I wish Law had adjusted his voice, even just a little, to suggest more Putin (or even Russian) rather than sticking rigidly to his own accent: it’s distinct enough that it can get in the way of his otherwise note-perfect characterisation.

The Wizard of the Kremlin gives a pretty comprehensive and interesting take on the past 25 years, too, as a satire with some sharp and amusing observations. However, it’s sometimes slightly hard to penetrate if you don’t have a reasonable grasp on these events already.

It also becomes a bit of a slog of a movie, with elements starting to lag as it moves through various chapters in Baranov’s life, like episodes. I couldn’t help but feel things could have been tied together more elegantly.

The film also retains something of the surface-level about it, with the story not always up to the standard and as well-crafted as the cast’s performances.

The Wizard of the Kremlin is out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 17. It will be released in the US on May 15.

A version of this review was first published on August 31, 2025.

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