This was like dinner in a good restaurant, but with a bad server.

Rating: 6/10 (9 February 2009)

This is a story well told. It does run overly long and is painfully dull at times, but the story itself is pretty interesting. Nixon is president and the Klan rules the times. George Wallace is governor of Alabama and the Soviet Russians have had enough of the American propaganda showing that every American has a car, every family has a house, and most people really have nice clothes. In the struggle for world nuclear supremacy, the (then) Soviet Union rushes to beat the US in the nuclear arms race.
I won't detail the story as so many already have, but this is pretty compelling even in the slowest times, although there are an unfortunate number of those slow times. The principals herein carry off the accents well enough, although the overall feeling this story should have conveyed does not manifest itself until near the final act.
All in all? This film is not for Friday or Saturday night viewing. This would serve better as an educational demonstration of Cold War attitudes, practices, and principles. For us, it felt more like a history lesson than entertainment.
This wasn't fun and the drama doesn't work its way into suspense until just before the end, regardless of the sheer volume of the score. The movie runs slowly and dully until right at the end, and then it tries to win you over after all that abuse. It's like dinner in a good restaurant but with a bad server who comes along at the end of a good meal but having given horrid service, and then asks you if there was anything else they could do for you in an attempt to get an unearned tip. And just like I don't tip those servers, I can't say I enjoyed this film.
I must also interject that I like to think that were this an American crew, they would have received the recognition they so deserved.
This rates a 6/10 from...
the Fiend :.