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(More customer reviews)Like the other movies originating from the unchallenged master of the intelligent spy thriller John LeCarre, this one is a really a sophisticated thriller exposing the hidden, complicated, and conflicted corners of an individual's human heart. "The Russia House" represented a formidable new challenge for LeCarre, so suddenly deprived of the spy-thriller heaven of the cold war he had built his career describing. But here he has mined fresh new tunnels of insight into the cunning, deceit, and betrayal that is the stuff of real-life espionage. At the same time, this movie also weaves a quite memorable love story in the spaces squeezed between the two sides.
Barley Blair (Sean Connery), the failing boozehound scion of a collapsing British publishing house with a love for everything Russian, happens by drunken though eloquent happenstance to inspire a famous Soviet scientist into attempting to sneak his manuscript detailing the real sorry state of Russian ICBM capabilities into the hands of the West in order to foster a recognition of the folly of the arms race and to end what he calls "the great lie". The scientist attempts to contact Blair, but through a series of mishaps rivaling the deeds of the keystone cops winds up landing the manuscript in the hands of the British Secret Service. So they soon want Barley to intercede with the Russian contact point (Michelle Pfeiffer) to find out who the author of the manuscript is and thus determine its authenticity. So Barley pursues the beautiful but conflicted contact, an idealistic angel of mercy who soon sparks Barley's love interest and paternal concern. The game is afoot.
The movie is gorgeously photographed on a number of locations throughout Russia, and the travelogue-like tour through Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Minsk is spellbinding. Likewise, the acting is top notch, with Roy Scheider, James Fox, and a whole welter of distinguished British actors lending presence and gravity to this intelligent thriller. As is usual, the plot takes off slowly but builds to a mind-boggling series of intertwining activities one has to pay attention to understand. Before long we recognize the familiar murderous games set into motion with deadly earnest by the Brits, the Americans, and the Russians, none of whom give a rattler's damn about Barley, the contact, or the scientist.
This is a stunning, suspenseful, and somewhat rueful tale of what unfolds when we discover that there is a real possibility that the so-called Soviet ICBM threat is a sham, that the missiles cannot escape their silos, that their ability to achieve trajectory or destroy targets with any accuracy is vastly over-rated. And as one can expect from LeCarre's shadowy and complex geopolitical world of espionage and power, there are no simple answers or easy foregone conclusions. This is a wonderful movie, which in my opinion is quite under-rated. It has the ring of more real-life veracity and worldly wisdom than one can easily find on the non-fiction side of the movie theater aisle. Enjoy!
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A filmmaking tour de force and 'the year's most sophisticated, suspenseful and sexy entertainment(Cosmopolitan), The Russia House stars OscarÂ(r) winner* Sean Connery and OscarÂ(r) nominee** Michelle Pfeiffer as two people caught in a web of spies and politics, whose love could prove fatal to them both. When Katya (Pfeiffer), a beautiful Russian book editor, attempts to send British publisher Barley Blair (Connery) a manuscript written by a noted Soviet scientist, she unwittingly draws them both into a world of international espionage. The manuscript, which contains information that could alter the balance of world power, is intercepted by the West's spy-masters who then send Blair to Russia to gain more information on the mysterious document. But when Blair meets Katya, he finds himself torn between his mission and the woman whose passion for her countryand for Blairknows no bounds.
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