"Goddamn you, you love Russia, don't you?"

Rating: 8/10 (2 May 2003)

In this absolutely hillarious historical satire of epic proportions, Woody Allen takes a shot at the Russian literary classics with "War and Peace" and "Brothers Karamazov" getting particularly "loving" satire treatment in this comic "melting pot" of "shameless desecration" of the Russian literary soul.
Dreamy, pacifistic, philosophically minded ("Nature is spiders, and bugs and big fish eating little fish. And plants eating plants and animals eating... it's like an enormous restaurant.") but cowardly young scholar Boris Grushenko (Woody Allen) is caught by an unpleasant surprise when moved to enlist into the Russian Army ("I'm not the army type. I slept with the lights on till I was 30. I can't shower with other men.") in order to fight for Mother Russia ("She is not my mother. My mother wouldn't let her youngest get shrapnel in his gums.") in the war with Napoleon. As if it wasn't bad luck enough, the second blow of fate is struck when the secret love of his heart and a frequent opponent in philosophical disputes, his beautiful cousin Sonja (Diane Keaton) decides to marry a foul smelling herring merchant Leonid Voscovec ("When something hurts herring, it hurts me") right before Boris' departure to the war. Boris' misfortunes begin as early as in an army training camp where we get a significant dose of slapstick in a form of a few "cliche" gigs (very similar to the ones in 1971's "Bananas") of Woody's pastimes with guns and other types of ammunition. Then while of furlough, our hero's adventure continues as he comes in a very close contact with the imminent danger of social illness ("I went to a brothel ones in my life. I got hiccups") and while in Sankt-Petersburg bumps into a "femme fatale" Countess Alexandrovna ("Ample bosoms,yes? I'd say ample for a regiment.") who takes fancy on our young coward ("He has quite a sensitive face, hasn't he? - That's the part of me that shows.") and both of them embark on a perilous amorous adventure which ends up in a hillarious duel scene and Boris' return to the front lines where he very soon realizes that "The battle looks completely different in the middle of it than it does to the generals up on the hill" and returns to Sankt-Petersburg, only this time as a war hero. ("I'd stayed longer, but they ran out of medals.") where he meets recently widowed Sonja whom he promptly marries and both of them enter the fascinating life of philosophical discussions, celibacy and meals of snow, a way of life in which they remain until French troops invade Russia and Sonja devises an ingenious plan to assassinate Napoleon. In bringing to life of, again hillarious, but finally fatal coup attempt, Boris gets his biggest realizations in life and death: of God being an underachiever, that there are no girls in the afterlife and that the angel of death don't always says the truth. A funniest Woody Allen film ever! A must see. 9/10