Russia Beware -- Here Comes Woody Allen

Rating: 6/10 (17 September 2007)

The last of Woody Allen's outright screwball comedies of the 1970s is a spoof of Russian novels and drama, with a healthy dose of Ingmar Bergman thrown in as well. The references fly almost faster than you can catch them -- no one is safe, not Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov. Watch for Allen's movie quoting other movies, like "Doctor Zhivago," "The Battleship Potemkin" and "Persona." The film culminates with a scene in which Allen's hapless Russian schmuck teams up with the cousin with whom he is desperately but unrequitedly in love (Diane Keaton) to assassinate Napolean, though the person they're trying to kill is actually a Napolean impostor. All of this madcap, zany comedy ends with a hat tip to Bergman's "The Seventh Seal," of all films, as the Allen character goes dancing through a meadow with the Grim Reaper.
This isn't the funniest Allen movie out there, but it's a harmless enough way to spend a quick 82 minutes.
Grade: B