Frenzied Bus

1990 film

26 April 1990 (1990-04-26)

Running time

105 minutesCountrySoviet UnionLanguageRussian

Frenzied Bus (Russian: Взбесившийся автобус, romanized: Vzbesivshiysya avtobus) is a 1990 Soviet crime film. The story is based on real events that occurred on 1 December 1988, when there was a hijacking of a bus with children in Ordzhonikidze.^[1]

Plot

The events occurred in Ordzhonikidze in 1988 and this is when the movie took place. In the film, criminals hijack a passenger bus from the city bus station. The criminals see a group of school children waiting for a bus after a field trip, and they invite them onto the bus and then take the children and their teacher hostage.

Meanwhile, police radio communications report the hijacking of the bus (without knowledge of the hostage-takers). The bus is spotted by local KGB officers, who heard the news on the radio of his official car ATC communications. The bus leaves the square in front of the local executive committee and the criminals open fire from the broken window on the door of the bus. The bus driver is seriously wounded.

Cast

Ivars Kalniņš as Colonel Valentin Orlov (voiced by Sergei Malishevsky)
Igor Bochkin as Pavel Melkoyants, terrorist ringleader^[2]
Anna Samokhina as Tamara Fotaki, Pavel's wife
Anna Tikhonova as teacher
Amayak Akopyan as Zhila, terrorist
Igor Kashintsev as Major General
Emmanuil Vitorgan as Mr. Anouk, a member of the Israeli Foreign Ministry
Boris Shcherbakov as Boris Vasilievich, a member of the USSR Foreign Ministry
Alexander Kuznetsov as flight engineer
Aristarkh Livanov as Viktor, Soviet Ambassador in Pakistan
Pyotr Shcherbakov as pilot

Filming

The first half of the film (including scenes of the taking of child hostages) was shot on location in Vladikavkaz, where the actual events took place, for 26 days. It was planned that the shooting of some scenes would take place in Israel, but instead the director had to use Moscow for Tel Aviv locations. The scenes of the Israeli Foreign Ministry were filmed at the Hotel Russia, whereas Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport stood in for Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport.^[2]