Pluskylang Great Film overall

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

slightlymad22 The Russia House (1990)Plot In A Paragraph: Small time, alcoholic London book publisher Barley Blair (Connery) an expatriate British publisher unexpectedly finds himself working for the CIA and MI6 to investigate people in Russia.The Movie is brilliantly cast, Connery in what did lol like a $10 wig, due to its dishevelled, thinning appearance, gives a very relaxed performance and has a twinkle in his eye. Michelle Pfeiffer makes a splendid natural beauty Katya, Klaus Maria Michelle Brandauer is fantastic (how did this man not get more work??) Roy Schindler (inexplicably in his last great role) is brilliant as the head of the CIA, John Mahoney is great as is Edward Fox as the head of MI6.I love Jerry Goldsmith's score, it is beautiful. I know it's not to every ones taste, and at the time of release, several critics called it "boring", "dull" and "dreary" but I think it is great. I'd rather watch this than another car chase movie like Fast & Furious. The slo motion ending is a bit over done, but that's it. I love it, and think it was one of the years best movies.With scathing reviews, Russia House grossed $22 million at the domestic box office, to end 1990 as the 52nd highest grossing movie of the year.

Robert J. Maxwell Sean Connery is a publisher and saxophone player swept up in Cold War antics as an agent trying to smuggle scientific secrets of some sort out of Russia and into the West.I never liked the soprano saxophone. I don't know why it exists. It's usually too shrill and is associated with supermarkets, cheap commercials, and Kenny G. Why isn't the clarinet good enough, hey? This is one sluggish movie and a bit complicated, as the author's plots tend to be. It's redeemed by the shenanigans of the CIA/MI5 or MI6, a group of puppeteers behind Connery and his contact, Michelle Pfeiffer, led by a hot-headed Roy Scheider and a dry, ironic James Fox. J. T. Walsh -- my co-star in the superlative "Windmills of the Gods", or what it "Rage of Angels?", I forget -- is the ironbound US Army officer who suspects everyone of being a ComSymp and wants to bomb them all -- "a hard-head from the ***hole up," as someone describes him.They put Connery through a lie detector test to make sure he's not a commie, and the scene puts on display the movie's most charming feature -- its witty screenplay.The wily interrogators ask Connery about his politics, his motives, his past. "Have you ever associated with any musicians with known anarchist tendencies?" Connery frowns thoughtfully. "Well, there was one trombone player. Willie Brown was his name. He was the only musician I've ever known who was completely devoid of any anarchist tendencies." The performances are uniformly good, even Roy Scheider who seems about to stroke out at any moment and who shouts scatological imprecations. I think the role calls for it. I can't understand why all the men are so awfully sun tanned though. The weather in Moscow and St. Petersberg are about what we can expect -- more clouds of gray than any Russian play could guarantee.The photography of Russian cities and their monuments is memorable.

claytonchurch1 I was disappointed in this film. As a spy film, so-so. Not much intrigue and never a sense of danger. As a romance, it's not that great either: just OK. Of course most every man is attracted to Michelle Pfeiffer, but the story itself doesn't build anything in the Connery character toward that relationship. The only thing the writing puts in there is that he's smitten by her when he first sees a picture of her. The opposite is also true, but not as much. It's understandable that she would have attraction to him from his acting as savior to her and her family, but he's 28 years older, and the writing doesn't address or overcome this. You just have to suspend your disbelief--hard. However, it works a little bit because as the viewer, you like Sean Connery, still see him as 1962's James Bond; and, you like Michelle Pfeiffer. This film could have used lots of editing. It's over two hours and moves very slowly. As my title says, the last 12 minutes are pretty good, but not so great that I enthusiastically say "it was worth the wait." Rather, I say: "The last 12 minutes are good, and the first 110 are simply just so-so."

patrick powell By chance this is the second of two spy films I watched in as many days and, essentially, they couldn't be more different. The other was The Good Shepherd, a long, subtle and nuanced portrayal of loyalty, trust, the lack of it and betrayal, all framed by an account of the genesis of the CIA and a fictionalised account of the life of James Angleton up until the Bay of Pigs fiasco when the CIA tried to get rid of Cuba's Fidel Castro. It stars Matt Damon and was directed by Robert De Niro, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys good, intelligent films which are the antithesis of so many shoot-em-up, wham-bam and gung-ho military and spy films we are all too often served up these days. And it has to be said the, by comparison, The Russia House pales rather, although that reflects on how good The Good Shepherd is rather than any shortcoming of The Russia House. That is the much more conventional film the two, a film of John le Carre's novel of the same name and, I must add, better than some of its kind. Both it and The Good Shepherd examine betrayal and how a loyal citizen might be tempted to betray his country, but at the end of the day The Russia House is more of a love story than a spy story. Although, a la le Carre, there are apparent ethical dilemmas and a convincingly detailed view of how spy agencies work - though I am in no position to vouch for the accuracy - it is very much the tale of how a 'decent human being' who drinks rather too much and has a dishevelled romantic past finally finds true love. Its side theme of how, when push comes to shove, the West - and especially the US military/industrial machine - is making rather too much good money from the arms race to be as interested in an end to the Cold War than it claims, is intriguing, but that theme is somewhat cursorily examined (in the novel as well) and were that to have been the film's driving force, it would have been very different and, I suspect, in other hands rather better than The Russia House. But I seem to be damning with faint praised and I don't mean to. From Sean Connery and James Fox to Roy Scheider and John Mahoney, not forgetting Michelle Pfeiffer as the love interest, there are strong performances and the film rattles along very nicely. Incidentally, the hero is an amateur though gifted jazz saxophonist and one rather attractive stylistic device is that the film as two different styles of score: a jazzy, bass-driven one when the action deals with the spying and a lush romantic character when we get to the lovey-dovey stuff. And at the end of the - disappointingly obligatory happy end - those two kinds of score are skilfully interweaved. If this kind of film is your bag, go for it. It is better than many, and you won't be disappointed. But if you want a more subtle and more satisfying outing, try The Good Shepherd. You won't be disappointed with that, either. And you might be even more enthused.