DARK HUMOR, SERIOUSNESS FUSE IN HBO'S 'PU-239'.

Byline: DAVID KRONKE

>TV CRITIC

An odd concoction mixing sorrowful solemnity with twisted black humor, "PU-239" attempts to captures the anarchic atmosphere that defines Russia in the aftermath of its post-Soviet disintegration.

It's a place with dilapidated nuclear processing facilities boasting no security, where idiot small-time thugs practice low-grade terrorism with impunity, where crooks with a modicum of drive and intelligence are kings.

Paddy Considine stars as Timofey, who's blamed for an accident in a nuclear plant that will likely kill him by its officials, who are anxious to keep investigators at bay. Realizing his days are numbered, but wanting to provide for his beloved wife and son, he swipes some weapons-grade plutonium to sell on the black market in Moscow.

There, he meets Shiv (Oscar Isaac), the "brains" behind a three-man gang that has no brains at all: They steal windshield wipers, menace the wrong storekeepers for protection money and try to make money from wounding dogs. In Timofey, Shiv sees his meal ticket, the big score that might win back his prostitute girlfriend (whom he warns not to canoodle with Americans and Brits), who has abandoned him for an appallingly unsavory but wealthy crimelord.

This can't possibly end well, and it doesn't. But the film, written and directed by Scott Burns (co-screenwriter of "The Bourne Ultimatum"), cagily captures both Shiv's jangly desperation and Timofey's resigned despair, fusing them to examine a microcosm of a collapsed society that doesn't realize it's already dead.

And what becomes of the plutonium itself is absolutely priceless.

David Kronke, [phone]

[e-mail] www.insidesocal.com/tv/

PU-239 - Three stars

>What: Weapons-grade plutonium hits the black-market streets of Moscow.

>Where: HBO.

>When: 8 tonight; also 4:35 a.m. Sunday, 8 p.m. Tuesday, 10:30 p.m. Nov. 25 and midnight Nov. 28, with additional playdates on other HBO platforms.

>In a nutshell: Blinkered desperation and resigned despair collide in this darkly comic tragedy.