Woody sends up Russian cinema & literature

Rating: 8/10 (30 April 2012)

Back when Woody Allen movies actually sought to entertain, this was one of the best. The familiar Woody nebbish is caught up in the sweep of historical events paralleling those in Tolstoy's War and Peace. Typically, Woody plays the reluctant hero and revolutionary. He would rather pursue the promiscuous Diane Keaton, than fight in the Napoleonic Wars, but he cannot avoid his comic destiny, as events cleverly conspire to drag him from fire to frying pan over and over.
The spread of targets for parody in this romp is its greatest strength. Even a well-schooled cineaste will be hard-pressed to catch the many clever references to famous Russian films and novels, notably the 1968 Sergei Bonderchuk version of War and Peace and the silent 1925 classic Battleship Potemkin.