THE sequel to director Alexei Balabanov's earlier Russian gangster success is different from the original in tone and style. The early Brother, set in post-communist Russia, was gritty, unpredictable and seemed an accurate reflection of the St Petersberg underworld of the time. What's more characters were vulnerable and you could sympathise with them, in particular the young demobbed Chechen veteran, Danila Bagrov (Sergei Bodrov), at the centre of the film.

With Brother 2 Balabanov slips into gangster genre formula. The action, although it starts in Russia, is now displaced to the States ("less subtitles, bigger market," you can hear the producer saying) and Bodrov and his brother, the Tartar, are moving up in the underworld. That means bigger guns, higher stakes and steelier nerves.

The trouble is that the violence is too sustained and the brothers lives too charmed to be credible. The violence is casual and meaningless - there is never any doubt that, in spite of the various shootouts, Danila will come through okay and get the girl(s).

Sergei Bodrov seems on auto-pilot. Danila comes across as an oafish and ruthless killer with only a few redeeming qualities: his concern for a Russian street prostitute - apparently because she is Russian - and his black sense of humour. Also, with chat-up lines that sound like they were lifted from a porn mag, Danila's relationship with a famous popstar girlfriend doesn't ring true.

There are occasionally some genuinely funny moments in the film. In particular, scenes with the bumbling North American mafia. But the fish-out-of-water aspect, a la Crocodile Dundee, of the two brothers Stateside visit, and some of the more vicious gangster humour doesn't always work well or sit comfortably.

With so many other juicy stories waiting to be told in Russia today, this is a disappointing follow-up. The worst thing is that you feel that Balabanov could do so much better if he hadn't sold out.