A half exploited opportunity

Rating: 7/10 (28 March 2007)

If this movie was three hours long and had a few more secondary characters it would have been the greatest movie of the decade. The story is a capturing tragedy, there are some brilliant ideas (the opening scene, the father pretending to be Jewish, the one night disappearing of the cargo, the lined up tanks shoot, Orlov's being a patron of the arts, the gasp after the encounter with the two prostitutes), the director had already showed his skills in setting up detailed and visually perfect representations (Gattaca), actors fit, lines are sharp, there's humor, but the whole thing looks like Niccol was in a hurry. And, maybe, a little too naive. Since when millionaire illegal arm dealers cruise all over the world without twenty fierce bodyguards? And, correct me if I'm wrong, Interpol has so many men, equipments and dollars at its disposal? Anyway, does it actually exist? And do lovely parents like those arrive at their son's marriage party after all the others? Weren't they at church? And what a coincidence having an uncle who is a colonel in the soviet army! And can a white guy in a suit survive more than five minutes alone in an African slum at night? And that blonde child! Didn't really Yuri suspect at all about his wife's loyalty? Too many shortcuts, imprecisions and anachronisms (for God's sake, couldn't they provide appropriate clothes for the seventies at least?). It's no big deal, all right, but they are distractions, they are the same of grammar mistakes in a book: they break your imagination and make you say -Hey, it's not real, I'm only watching a movie!- And that's the most anti movie thing that you can find in a movie. Worse if the movie is good.