Summer is traditionally a season Kazakh filmmakers dislike. It is believed that the audience flow is smaller, and Hollywood blockbusters interfere with box office distribution – in 2026, these were “Odyssey” and “Spider-Man: New Day.” But there are those who take risks, and sometimes the risk pays off. A year ago, in the second half of August, the excellent comedy “Qolynnan kelse alyp qash” was released, eventually surpassing the significant mark of one billion in box office receipts. Now, first “Bolgan oqigha 2” appeared on screens, and this week – “14 Kun.” Notably, the same team that worked on “Qolynnan kelse alyp qash” wrote the script for “14 Kun,” but repeating last year’s hit’s success is unlikely. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.

In English, there is the concept of a bucket list – a list of things and desires to fulfill while alive. In 2007, it gave the title to a film starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. It was localized as “The Bucket List,” which is not so bad. There, the main characters, hospital roommates, a rich man and a poor man, set off to fulfill that very list.

Even earlier, in 1997, the cult film “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” was released, starring Til Schweiger and Jan Josef Liefers, ending with an equally cult scene by the sea. To some extent, the theme of a bucket list and, in general, fulfilling cherished desires has appeared in other films – for example, “The Intouchables,” which also became a classic. The script of “14 Kun” revolves around these films.

A wealthy businessman Darkhan (Abilmansur Serikov) invites his childhood friends, farmer Bolat (Ashim Akhmetov) and unemployed Ernat (Kanat Taskhan), to a meeting in a very original way, where he announces that he does not have long to live. Once, Darkhan severely offended his comrades, who are on completely different levels of the class hierarchy of Kazakh society, but at such a moment he has no one else to turn to. And there is no need. Darkhan suggests Bolat and Ernat spend a week together fulfilling the wishes from his list, and the former classmates set off.

The first thing you notice: in both “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and “The Bucket List,” both heroes were on the brink of death, they had nothing to lose, and this brought them closer, turning them from strangers into friends. In “14 Kun,” the mise-en-scène is different: the heroes were once friends, and now, when things got tough, one of them, who once offended the others, calls them to keep him company, and they – although they came to the meeting without any sympathy for Darkhan – quickly agree. Obviously, Bolat and Ernat are very empathetic people, and this transformation could be attributed to a script convention, but then questions begin to accumulate, especially in the second half of the film.

The first half looks quite nice, except that Darkhan’s list of wishes is, to put it mildly, unoriginal. Punish the school bully, meet the former class beauty, commit an extreme act (oh, but exactly the same was in “The Intouchables” and “The Bucket List”), and in principle, you can guess how everything will end everywhere.

And here, for some reason, the film includes an almost one-to-one copied scene from “The Other Guys” – the one where Mark Wahlberg’s character is amazed that his partner (Will Ferrell) has a wife with such a stunning appearance (played by Eva Mendes). Ashim Akhmetov acted as the Kazakh Will Ferrell, and our Eva Mendes was singer and blogger Sabina Movlayeva. By the way, the wives of other characters are also played by famous personalities – Makpal Isabekova and Gulnaz Zholanova.

Thanks in part to the impressive cast, the first half of the film looks good, despite some strange scenes like the casting with singer Madina Sadvakasova. What happens on screen at that moment looks frankly cringe.

But Abilmansur Serikov (hurray, hurray!) finally does not play a hardened scumbag, Ashim Akhmetov, who usually has a supporting role, gets (hurray, hurray!) the lead role and reveals himself magnificently (although one can recall how brightly he showed himself in “Aldar. Makhabbat turaly anyz”), and Kanat Taskhan is just a wonderful comic actor.

However, there is one “but”: the main characters do not come together as a trio. Throughout the film, they seem to be on their own. I assume that the ensemble’s cohesion was affected by banal haste. From the film’s Instagram and individual details in the frame, you can understand that “14 Kun” began filming in mid-June (if anything – this year), and at the end of August it was already released. Sometimes it seems that some takes could have been reshot, and the most offensive thing: the scene with the song Freestyler by Bomfunk MC’s completely fails – the rights to it were specially purchased for the film. Ideally, this should be a memorable peak like the scene with September after the classical concert in “The Intouchables.” But either they did not have time to come up with (stage, rehearse – underline what is necessary) the dance, or something else, and as a result, the “Wow!” effect did not happen.

Interestingly, in the second half of the film, the most memorable thing is also a song. A new version of “Zhuldyzym” by the legendary duo “Nurlan men Murat.” And what about the film itself, you ask, and I will answer. The second part is another speculative manipulation on the theme of an incurable disease, self-sacrifice, correct feelings, and determining the exact places where the viewer should cry, of which there are so many in our cinema over the past couple of years. Too many. In February, the creators of “Songy makhabbat,” which failed at the box office, suffered because of this – the viewer was simply tired of the flow of tear-jerking films. Let’s see what happens with “14 Kun.”

This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.