Reviews

Can this leading man be this much of a dupe? Can he really trust this woman who is obviously a chronic liar and thief? Can the Tom Berenger character and this insurance investigating company boss really trust this beginner and not ask to see his surveillance recordings, especially in light of an astronomical bill to the client?

In the early 1950s, Russia's brutal, murdering leader Josef Stalin (staling is Russian for "steel") became extremely paranoid of Jewish doctors, who he claimed were sabotaging Russian ideology. The controls were tightened and many were falsely accused and executed. The dialog makes many references to Russian soldiers occupying a neighboring country, candidates being Hungary, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and the Baltic States. Some of the "border" towns have German names, others have Slavic (e.g., Zarnick) names. The student protest against totalitarian occupation is suppressed by the heroine's ostensible lover, an ambitious Russian Captain - Major wanna-be. The fear endured by Communist occupation continued, despite Hungarian invasion by Russia in 1956, and Czech invasion by Russia in 1968, Stalin died in 1953.

This movie could have been so much better done. Decent acting but horrible holes and ridiculous coincidences. Also, another "black people good - white people bad or corrupt" film.

Wonderful...no sex scenes, no children, no dogs, no car chases, no catchy, memorial one-liners....just a reasonable drama with reasonable acting. Yes, a few holes, but come on, almost every movie ever made has holes. Hollywood lives on them. Yes, violence also, but given the story line, I don't see how the movie could have been made without it. The nitpickers can go watch some special effects with lots of inclusivity, and the above standards, but this movie was a welcome departure from all that.

As with most movies today, the extremes are over-represented and the underlying issues barely addressed. England was reeling from a Napoleanic, banker-funded war, ending in oppressive debt for the major powers of Europe. The Bank of England and the Bank of France were both formed to lend money to their respective governments, with few constraints on the pyramiding, in order to fund regular wars. The French revolution was trying to spread its socialist conclusions. Men are represented as either cruel, money-grubbing wealthy industrialists or poor, woe-is-me peasant labor, although one could hardly call people who had several sets of clothes, a house and sets of dishes as poor. The gratuitous men-oppress-their-more-intelligent-women folk is consistent with modern social justice bleatings. Consequently, what we see is the plight of what the French called the bourgeoisie, or the merchant and skilled labor class. The entrenched oligarchies were hanging on to their power, generated by industrial technological expansions (in this case the mechanical loom), which ironically needed skilled laborers and supporting merchants, who also were gaining wealth, counter to the woe-is-me picture. Much of the problem was the government-imposed lack of producers' and laborers' ability to negotiate the price of their labor and the markets for their products. The many government-oligopoly controls on cloth production are not presented, but were responsible for most of the tension. Of course, these issues would hardly sell to uninformed viewers.

As with the onset of the French revolution, the key issue is never quite resolved in these movies, or in the social justice bleatings of today: after the dust settles, who will be in charge and what will the new rules be? Will the current oppressors be replaced by worse oppressors? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, both in labor and management. Government meddling has and will cause tragedy.

Pretty decent humor; on the political runway he takes the conservative approach, but hits both sides; not too raw. Agree with the 'cerebral, astute, and clever' attributes.

The tension never stopped. Gloriously, there were no car chases, no kids, no dog/cat worship, no political correctness. Molly Ringwald was a non-entity. Some violence, but little gratuitous.