Russicum

The best example of what the near Cold War end era movies looked like. And it is made by a specialist of this kind of features, one of the best, the most accurate on the field, an Italian film maker, who could have been Damiano Damiani; but that's not him. I am speaking of Pasquale Squieteri, who gave us tremendous and realistic films about mafia and politics. And not in the American way. For instance MORI AFFAIR. But you can guess that a thriller involving the connection between Vatican, Mafia and KGB can not being easy to understand, follow. The kind of John Le Carré like story, as you can find by dozens in five hundred pages novels. And I must confess that I am not a great lover of this kind of scheme, involving Vatican, Church and priests...But I made a certain effort for this watchable film which had not received any comments yet. Treat Williams is not a great actor but he is rather good here, seeming not to understand what he is doing in this mess. And I think that's better for the audiences. I repeat, this kind of stuff can not be too clear. All the charm remains in the complexity. Watch out the sequence where the more than convincing "priest" Murray Abraham transforms a crucifix into a 9mm Parabellum... Unfortunately not a satisfying ending.