Perilous

The plot is about a tiara that is stolen and not given to the people who would like it for selling. Lots of chasing around, speaking to different people to find out who wants it, and why they want to keep it and who is hiding what, where is it and what are you doing?

This is not very hard to follow, despite the shananigans that occur. The main characters never really encounter desperate situations, and are always hanging around together. I feel this is a slight disadvantage to the film as much more tension could be created by using their relationship.

However the romantic entanglement means they need to spend all non action parts forwarding the relationship, so it would have been tricky.

There is nothing essentially wrong with the film, in terms of bad production, it just doesn't have a very big impact. I never felt that the outcome was ever in doubt.

I didn't mind spending 90 mins watching this, but being a bloke perhaps that had something to do with the female lead.

This peculiar production, set in St Petersburg, seems to have been executed with American money and an American script and director by Lithuanians, both as actors (but not in the lead parts) and as technicians. (A Lithuanian film studio seems to have been involved.) This gives an odd effect. The Lithuanian actors are authentically Soviet, but not in fact authentically Russian, and give a disarmingly provincial feel to what is supposed to be a story about the extremely un-provincial Russian mafia. The stars never break sweat as they float through a story so absurd that they don't seem to think it is worth pretending they are taking it seriously, but I enjoyed this film on balance. (The leads make an attractive if ultimately unconvincing couple.) Non-Russians pretending to be Russian gangsters is always a dodgy proposition, and the Lithuanians don't do much better on that score than other contenders; but the extensive location shooting in St Petersburg does give the atmosphere of that city and of Russia today, and the parts shot in Vilnius are consistent with the post-Soviet look of the main location. Reminded me of a Canadian/Latvian production, Red Hot, which had the same important element of some genuine Soviet (post-Soviet in this case) atmosphere: something most attempts at genre Russian gangster films fail at completely.

Though this movie claims to be from 2000, it feels as though it sat in the can for forty years. Everything from the scenery to the background music is straight from one of the first James Bond movies in the 1960's. Even the action scenes, such as they are, are in the 60's style.

The only actor I recognized was Catherine Oxenberg, whose claim to fame is more for being a member of the British royal family than as an actress. We're talking amateur hour. Sadly no one else is any better.

Four stars as a demonstration of how far we've come in movie production over the last forty years. Zero stars for not keeping up with the times. Four stars.

If you love TV movies like I do, you'll like this one. The Russian atmosphere sets it apart from other movies with similar plots.

The actors, while not trying too hard, seem to be having fun. An endless supply of gangsters and bad guys harass hapless Bruce Boxleitner and the street smart Catherine Oxenberg around the dreary streets and buildings of Soviet Russia. The real fun begins when Bruce's horrible girlfriend arrives on the scene to surprise him.

Don't expect The Bourne Supremacy here, true fans of campy TV movies will really like it.