The Russia House

1990's THE RUSSIA HOUSE, an adaptation of John Le Carre's novel, is ultimately more interested in romance than espionage....and ends up less than satisfactory on both counts.  Director Fred Schepisi's movie casts two leads with sex appeal,  Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeifer, hoping their onscreen chemistry would thrill audiences from Moscow to Honolulu.  A May-December love story to perhaps have a multi-generational draw.   I guess it didn't work out that way, as the film was less than a box office juggernaut, not exactly critically acclaimed, and rarely mentioned these days.  Did it even find its audience on cable or home video?

The plot involves a crusty publisher called Barley (Connery) who finds himself interrogated by British Intelligence after they learn of a manuscript submitted to him by a shadowy figure called Dante (Klaus Maria Brandauer) via Russian secretary Katya (Pfeifer, sporting a unconvincing accent).  Said document contains details of Soviet Union armament and its plans for nuclear war.  The MI6 and the CIA discover that Dante is actually a famous Soviet physicist, and employ a reluctant Barley to play spy and find out more about him by cozying up to Katya, Dante's former lover.

You know where such a story will lead, but never once did I believe Barley's gradual realization that he is in love.   When he starts uttering words to that effect, it sounds like an unremarkable line reading in an audition.  Connery otherwise does quite well as a cynical cuss, and the entire cast is in fine form.  It was especially fun to watch American actors like Roy Scheider and J.T Walsh interact with Brits James Fox and even director Ken Russell during numerous tense scenes in HQ as Barley and seemingly everyone else are under surveillance.

But Tom Stoppard's script, while timely in the era of glasnost, is far from involving, even dull.  I hate to say that Connery and Pfeifer's relationship was likewise from A to Z.  Schepisi and crew make superb use of locations in the Soviet Union (only the second Hollywood feature to shoot there), but maybe just two hours of second unit footage would've worked out better.