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“ | For love of God, SHUT THE HELL UP! | „ |
~ Antonin Dovchenko trying to silence Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood's bickering. |
Colonel Antonin Dovchenko is the secondary antagonist of the 2008 action-adventure film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones film series.
He is a Soviet Union soldier and Irina Spalko's right-hand man. During the Soviet effort to deliver the Crystal Skull of Akator back to Akator for Spalko to gain psychic knowledge she could use to win the Cold War as the late Joseph Stalin wished, Dovchenko comes across many times with the American archaeologist Indiana Jones, obsessing himself with killing the archaeologist.
He was portrayed by Igor Jijikine.
Biography[]
In 1957, Antonin Dovchenko led a group of Soviet soldiers to the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and, as an unmarked force, they captured Indiana Jones and George McHale at a set of coastal Mayan ruins. Taking the two and a bag of Jones' recent aquisitions, he and his men, now disguised as an American army convoy, approached the Nevada military base housing Hangar 51. Disguised as an American army officer and using the alias "Colonel Truman", Dovchenko commanded the team that infiltrated Hanger 51. Pulling Jones and McHale out of the trunk of a staff car, his men stood aside as Dovchenko tried to question Jones about the building. After punching Jones in the jaw for not answering him, he was forced to give up when Spalko arrived and took over the operation.
After the Roswell remains were acquired, Jones escaped, Dovchenko caught up to the professor, and they crashed into the launch room for an experimental rocket sled. Dovchenko fought Jones, after being thrown through the glass into a control room, accidentally starting the ignition sequence. Dovchenko attacked Jones with a chain, but failed when the rocket sled activated and the two were shot out into the desert on a rail track. The rapid speed rendered the Russian officer unconscious, and when it stopped, Jones was able to push him off the vehicle into the dirt.
Upon recovering he is found by some of his men who followed the rocket sled's trail, and, getting into a jeep, commands the second carload of troops to hunt down and kill Jones before returning to Spalko, having had enough of the hot desert. He desired to return to Russia, but went to Peru with Mac where they captured Jones and Mutt Williams and brought them to Spalko's military encampment in Brazil, where her quest to find Akator would begin. During the truck ride to Akator, Dovchenko became annoyed by the bickering of Jones and Marion Ravenwood and attempted to gag her, whereupon both Jones and Mutt kicked him in the head and knocked him out.
He remained unconscious in the back of the truck for the beginning of the ensuing jungle chase, but when Marion pulled alongside a duck containing Mac, Oxley and several soldiers, Dovchenko awakened and (barely) regained control of the truck after she and Mutt jumped out into the other vehicle.
Infuriated with Jones for knocking him out twice, he gathered the straggling soldiers thrown out during the chase and the truck soon caught up to Jones' party - at a nesting site for a supercolony of siafu. Heedless of the ants, Dovchenko leaped out of the speeding truck and tackled Jones and Oxley to the ground, engaging Jones in a second brutal fistfight, which was allowed to continue unmolested by the ants due to Oxley using the Crystal Skull. Following being beaten upside the head with a log by Jones, a dazed Dovchenko fell into the ant swarm, causing him to scream in fear. The ants engulfed his entire body and dragged him headfirst into the nest, where he was devoured alive.
Quotes[]
“ | POMOGI MNE! | „ |
~ Dovchenko's last words ("Help Me!" in Russian), as he is dragged to his death by siafu ants |
Trivia[]
- Antonin Dovchenko's role in the film mirrors that of the late Pat Roach in the first three Indiana Jones films, where Roach played big, burly henchmen willing to fight against Indiana Jones only to be gruesomely killed as a result, like the German Mechanic from Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Chief Guard of Indiana Jones and the Temple Doom. Roach didn't return for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull due to his death in 2004, leading Igor Jijikine to fill the "tough guy" role.
- That said, although a fifth Indiana Jones movie entitled Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was released in 2023, Igor Jijikine didn't return to play another big, burly henchman in the fifth film, leading Olivier Richters to fulfill that role as Hauke.
- Igor Jijikine, the actor who played Dovchenko, actually served in the Soviet Special Forces back in the 1980s, performing mandatory military service from 1982 to 1984. Jijikine also worked as a high-wire trapeze artist in the Cirque du Soleil.
- Dovchenko could have easily avoided being devoured alive by the siafu if he hadn't jumped from the truck which was carrying him to safety to fight against Indiana Jones in revenge for his previous defeat. This indicates that Dovchenko lacked of moral sense nor regard of his well-being.
- Many fans deem Dovchenko's death one of the most, perhaps the most, disturbing death scenes in the entire franchise, as he was not only devoured alive by the siafu ants, but agonizingly asphyxiated by them before.
External Links[]
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