Build a movie plot around this: who had opposed the scheme as reckless and foolhardy? Vladimir
In Moscow[edit]Set against the backdrop of the Cold War and Soviet political repression of the early 1980s prior to perestroika, Vladimir Ivanoff (Robin Williams), a saxophonist with the Moscow circus, lives in a crowded apartment with his extended family. He stands in lines for hours to buy toilet paper and shoes. When the apparatchik assigned to the circus (Kramarov as Boris) criticizes Vladimir for being late to rehearsal and suggests Vladimir may miss the approaching trip to New York, Vladimir gives Boris a pair of shoes from the queue that made Vladimir late. While Ivanoff is riding in his friend Anatoly's (Baskin as the circus clown) Lada, Anatoly stops to buy fuel for his car from a mobile black market gasoline dealer. While the friends wait for the gasoline seller to fill Anatoly's jerrycans, the two practice their English.Vladimir acts as go-between for his crazy grandfather and KGB agents who want to arrest the old man for shouting anti-Soviet slogans out the apartment window. Vladimir defends his grandfather to the agents as a harmless comedian who is a war hero.Defection in New York[edit]The circus troupe is sent to perform in New York City. Anatoly, who has talked of little else but defecting, can't bring himself to go through with it; and Vladimir, who had opposed the scheme as reckless and foolhardy, suddenly decides to do it. He runs from his Soviet controllers and hides behind a perfume counter at Bloomingdale's under the skirt of the clerk, Lucia Lombardo (Maria Conchita Alonso). When local police and the FBI arrive, Vladimir stands up to his controllers and defects to the United States with news cameras rolling. Vladimir is left with nothing but the clothes on his back, the money in his pocket, and a pair of blue jeans he had planned to buy for his girlfriend in Moscow.Life in the Big Apple[edit]Lionel Witherspoon (Cleavant Derricks), an African American security guard who has just protected Vladimir from his furious Russian handlers during Vladimir's defection, takes him home to...