The film stars Sergei Bodrov Jr. as Danila Bagrov, a young ex-conscript who becomes embroiled with the Saint Petersburg mob through his criminal older brother.

Danila Bagrov (Sergei Bodrov Jr.), recently discharged after serving in the Chechen War, returns to his hometown.

Unbeknown to their mother, Viktor is an accomplished hitman who goes by the nickname "Tatar", working for a St. Petersburg mafia boss called "Krugly" (Russian for "round").

Krugly, who is unhappy with the amount of money that Viktor demanded for the hit, orders his thugs to watch the Chechen, so that he can kill the Tatar to avoid paying him.

To avoid exposure, Viktor passes his assignment to his brother, gives him money to settle into the city, and then lies to him that the Chechen has been extorting from him, asking Danila to perform the hit.

Krugly takes Viktor hostage and, threatening to kill him, demands that he hand over Danila and return the money.

Danila takes the briefcase with money from the apartment and advises his brother to return home to his mother and get a job with the police.

Having left Sveta, a frustrated Danila goes to Hoffman, discusses with him the pernicious influence of the big city on people and finally offers him money, but he refuses.

Looking for a suitable soundtrack, Balabanov chose the band Nautilus Pompilius, since he had been friends with the vocalist Vyacheslav Butusov since his time in Sverdlovsk.

The large-knit sweater worn by Danila was bought by the artist Nadezhda Vasilyeva at a flea market for forty rubles.

[7] According to producer Sergei Selyanov, one of the main goals of Brother was to capture the transition from the "communal system of life" under socialism to the "individual responsibility" of capitalism.

[5] Literary critic and publicist Viktor Toporov [ru], studying the draft version of the script, noted that it is connected with other Balabanov films, both previous and subsequent, through various details:[4] Balabanov's integrity becomes especially obvious in the process of reading the film scripts he wrote, the internal connections between which become something like a single circulatory system.

Danila's "mature" girlfriend, a tram driver who has been pretty battered by life, turns out to be an inveterate bottom here: she likes being tortured and she keeps in the closet - and readily uses on herself - almost the entire arsenal of SM.

Which, on the one hand, ties her together (forgive me this pun) with both the "porn divas" from Freaks and the daughter of the district committee secretary from Cargo 200, and on the other, in a purely Fassbinderian way, turns her into the long-suffering Mother Russia!

[4]Film critic Anton Dolin describes Danila as "a man who has fallen out of context, living in a time of great change, but who has ceased to feel History."

It does not yet have the postcard popular style of Brother 2 nor the hard guignol of Cargo 200, but it no longer smells of the esoteric thoughtfulness of Happy Days and The Castle.

Tough, clear, dashing, frank, naive, poetic, musical, not containing a single unnecessary frame or word.

[...] Brother is either a tragedy or a comedy of the loneliness of the hero, who dreamed of loved ones, but ended up with his pistol in the Lutheran cemetery in the company of a German and a director who is scared to death of him.

And the hero will be appropriated and called "brother" by the trivial thieves from Krugly's gang - those who unsuccessfully tried to kill him in the film.

"Journalist and critic Yuri Saprykin [ru] defined Danila's personality as a blank slate, on which are listed the names of his closest relatives, a few moral truisms ("the weak must be protected"), several innate social instincts ("I'm not very fond of Jews") and the name of his favorite band ("Nautilus Pompilius").

Saprykin characterizes Bagrov's signature unflappable shooting style as "the fastest movement towards the goal, with all ethical corners cut off; the simplest solution for any problem, he is like a bullet that flies in a straight line.

Class enmity is absent from his simple value grid, where only the division into friends and foes is important, and with the exception of the Tatar, who is always a friend because he is a brother, this division is always established by chance, according to the situation.Saprykin also agrees with the author of Balabanov's biography, Maria Kuvshinova, regarding the role of Hoffman, who he see as a kind of alter ego of Balabanov.

[14] Vesti.ru noted that "the first day of the film's re-release brought in 7 million rubles, which for the current situation is an excellent result.

"[15] The film's producer, Sergei Selyanov, admitted that "We didn't make any predictions, but the result exceeded our wildest expectations.

[19] Brother 2 is notable for having a significantly higher budget, placing more emphasis on action sequences, and being set in Moscow and Chicago.