Brilliant comedy charting the rise and fall of a Russian coward in the midst of the Napoleonic wars

Rating: Null/10 (7 May 2001)

Allen is Boris Grushenko, a Russian coward, who unsuccessfully tries to avoid the impending war with Napoleonic France. He somehow becomes a war hero and hatches a plan to assassinate Napoleon with the help of Natasha (Diane Keaton).
This is classic Woody Allen. Apart from the cutting one-liners and characteristic asides, it is also a brilliant pastiche of Bergman, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The prison sequence and the conversations with death are inspired.
The score, Prokoviev's War and Peace suites, sets the pace for the film and gives it a feeling of lightness which is at odds with the supposedly lofty themes of Love and Death.
Definitely, a showcase for Woody's talent.