The Russia House (DVD)

Mr. Sean Connery is one of our very dearest actors and Michelle Pfeiffer rates as one of the very most beautiful women and talented actresses in the entire world.

This is a movie which deals with the element of human striving for companionship amidst a coldness that pervades many a beautiful soul at different times of upheaval in their lives and in ther environments.

While Connery and Pfeiffer are not convincing as an ideally suited couple, Connery shows great taste in the choice he makes to gain her love. A very beautiful unfolding in this respect which makes the movie very special indeed.

Championing the cause of real and true idealism in the style of a great hero, Connerys character makes a very risky and suspenseful play to maintain the balance of power in east west nuclear deterrence based on nothing more than hiw actions as a lone operator in the theatre at his level of intellectual functioning.

If you enjoy spy movies in the Lecarre genre and are intellectually curious in this respect, youll absolutely love this movie.

And then again I would never have missed it for the real treat it is to have Michelle Pfeiffer show off her real human beauty which captures the imagination of all in giving us a real sense of what it is to live and what it is we would die for. That is the message in the end and it gives Connerys character the food for thought that leads to his brave decision.

A movie you will love to have in your home library!

One of the most unique of all Sean Connery's films and well worth watching. His character is this curmudgeon type fella with a thick British/Scottish accent whose soul is struck with a challenge he can't turn his back on. You're not sure about the love interest until you see Barley and Kattia having their first conversation. Sparks fly and the music sets each scene beautifully. Age difference means nothing with this match.

I bet Sean Connery really enjoyed making this movie. He lets his hair down and plays "Barley" Scott Blair, a free-wheeling always-near-a-bottle British publisher who seems less interested in publishing and more interested in rubbing elbows with his Russian writer & publishing friends (and Russian people overall) whom he finds down-to-earth and honest. When asked to compare Russia and America he says "Oh, it is corrupt as America, but there's less bullsh**."

During one of his frequent trips to Russia he finds himself at Peredelkino, the "writer's village", spending the afternoon "solving the world's problems" with several writer friends where, with the aid of the ever-present bottle, he waxes eloquent about truth and justice, and unbeknownst to him, stirs the patriot spirit of a Russian physicist (code-named "Dante") there on a "drinking holiday."

Michelle Phifer plays Katya Orlova, the physicist's long-time friend and one-time lover who works for a Russian publisher. Sometime after her physicist friend is stirred to action by Barley's eloquence, she receives a manuscript from him with instructions to forward it to Barley whom he believes will publish it in Britian. Being concerned about Russia's future and the future of her own children there, she attempts to get the manuscript to Barley during a book fair in Moscow.

She arrives at the book fair and finds Barley's booth, but it is empty. She inquires at the adjacent booth about Barley's absence, and is told by Niki Landau, a publishing friend of Barley, that Barley never showed up. In apparent desparation she asks Niki to take the manuscript and get it to Barley.

The movie centers around what happened to the manuscript after Niki can't find Barley, decides to have a look at it himself, then decides to give it to British Intelligence, who later elicit Barley's help to find and indetify the writer of the manuscript.

The movie opens with Barley being questioned by British Intelligence about the manuscript. All of the above background is brought in through a series of flashbacks as Barley explains to the Intelligence folks about the Peredelkino meeting where he remembers briefly talking to the one they called Dante.

One of the best things about this movie is the background music consisting mostly of some very well done jazz variations on the song "A Time For Love." I found the music so good that I also bought the soundtrack CD.

For a really good love story that develops out of a Russian physicist's effort to get a the truth about Russia's strategic defense readiness out to the world, and takes you on a tour of the beauty of Moscow, Lenningrad, and the Russian countryside, topped off by a really good jazz soundtrack, see "Russia House."
Review

This movie was one of the first U.S. films to be shot largely on
location in the Soviet Union and is based on the John le Carre novel
by the same name. In the movie, a small time publisher named
Barley Blair played by Sean Connery (First Knight, Finding Forrester,
Entrapment, The Rock, many James Bond movies-007 type, etc) receives
a package of notebooks purported to contain cold-war secrets, afterwards,
he is summarily hijacked by MI-5 who tries to enlist him for their
purposes. In the midst of this process, the beautiful messenger
played by Michele Pfeiffler (White Oleander, Cheri, Personal Effects,
Wolf, etc) captures Connerys interest causing him to decide to do
the bidding of the spy agency. The director of the movie is Fred
Schepisi who has done good work on a number of movies (Roxanne, Fierce
Creatures, Barbarosa, A Cry in the Dark, etc) and does a good enough
job with this one especially making it well-plotted and weaving a very
good romantic mystery into the flix. If you like spy novels, intrigue,
suspense (especially endings) or are a collector of Connery 's movies,
then you certainly will like this one and will want to add it to your
dvd collection. A good movie that will fill a evening with a good
evening of entertainment for most watchers.