Purely Joyful Movie!

Let's be realistic.

An absolute waste of money

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The errors liberally sprinkled throughout this page attests to how confusing both viewers and IMDb editors have evidently found this grubby spy drama in the past. But it's long been one of the conventions of this genre that their plots are invariably both fiendish and fiendishly complicated so I took that pretty much in my stride.Tourism Vancouver aren't likely to have been pleased with Brian West's bleak winter photography of Vancouver, which makes the place look a dump. George Segal's presence evokes memories of 'The Quiller Memorandum', which ironically made Berlin look much more cheerful than Vancouver does here; while Gordon Jackson performs a similar function here to the one he performed in 'The Ipcress File'. It builds up to a satisfactorily slam-bang action finish; but I found the creepy and amoral exploitation of exiled dissident Rudolph Henke by both sides and (SPOILERS COMING) what seemed to me Segal's gratuitous killing of him at the end when doped up to the eyeballs and plainly not capable of going very far unpleasant even by the ethical standards of the genre. Segal also fortuitously lands on his feet a few more times than is probable, engineering a car crash that kills the driver but which he survives, and using a rifle to shoot down a helicopter which crash lands without devastating the centre of Vancouver. And how did Henke's abductors manage to leave so much blood behind, while still keeping him in one piece?The unexpected presence in an extremely minor role of Louise Fletcher - looking most fetching in uniform but otherwise wasted - is that the film was co-produced by her husband Jerry Blick, and that she hadn't yet made 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. That was her next film.

'Russian Roulette' is an independently produced thriller lensed on location in Vancouver, The Russian premier's State visit to the city, sparks an intricate And elaborate assassination plot, The ever excellent and watchable, George Segal, stars as Harry Shaver, a Royal Canadian Mountain,Cop who's currently on suspension for an undisclosed offense towards his boss, Segal becomes involved in the staking out of a Russian political troublemaker, whom is currently residing in Vancouver, The plot thickens when said troublemaker goes missing, and the arrival of a Hit-man from Detroit really gets the plot going,In a hilarious scene Segal accidentally kill's the hit-man, which leaves him with questions without answers, Segal with love interest in tow,sets out in a desperate race against time to thwart the assassination,before it's too late, which culminate's in a deadly rooftop/helicopter/ suicide bomb showdown,There is a wealth of talent involved including British favorite Denholm Elliot, as a greasy Informant, Gordon Jackson, and Cristina Raines as Segal's love interest, Robert Romanus, as an obnoxious hit-man,It would be great if they could put this on DVD as it would benefit from a spruced up restoration,

***SPOILERS*** Tense and high wire-like thriller set in the Canadian city of Vancouver about an attempted assassination of Soviet Primer Kosygin by a rouge KGB group thats in charge of his protection. With the Cold War winding down it looks like the USSR will cut it's military expenditures including those for the dreaded KGB. This has a number of KGB officers led by Col. Sergi Vostick, Bo Brundin, in a panic. Charged to protect Primer Kosygin on his visit to Vancouver Col. Vostic plans to have a CIA informer and violent anti-Communist Rudolf Heke, Val Avery, who hates the Soviet Union for what it did to him and his family in Soviet-controlled Latvia, to blow himself up and take Preimer Kosygin with him. The only thing wrong with that is that Heke doesn't know that he's going to do it.RCMP, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, cpl. Shavers, George Seagal, who's on suspension for belting his boss Inspector McDermott, Peter Donat, in contacted by the Special Branch, the Canadian CIA, commander Petepice, Denholm Elliott, to see that Heke is kept off the streets until the Kosygin visit is over. After being kidnapped and held hostage with his girlfriend Bogna, Christina Raines, who works in the Royal Mounted Police record room and gave cpl. Shavers the vital information that he needed to find out just who Henke really is, a CIA undercover informant, did he realize just who was out to get Soviet Perimer Kosygin, and it sure wasn't Rudolf Henke. By having Kosygin assassinated in a western country that borders on the USA it would re-start the Cold war and provide all the funds and manpower the KGB would ever need. As well as reinforce the iron-grip that the KGB have on that nation. The movie "Russian Roulette" builds up to an exciting final as cpl. Shavers breaks out, together with Bogna, from the rouge KGB's captors hideout and against the clock speeds down, with a borrowed 1960 car low on gas, to the Vancouver Hotel in Vancouver. Shavers then tries to prevent Col. Vostick and his thugs from possibly starting WWIII in order to hold on to their power. With the KGB's conspirators commandeering a police helicopter with Henke drugged and tied on it, together with a number of explosives attached to his body, they plan to do Premier Kosygin in before he gets to the hotel.Cpl. Shavers has the almost impossible task to first get away from Col. Vostic, who's trying to shoot him, as they both jockey for position on the roof of the 16 floor 200 foot Vancouver Hotel to either make sure, in Col. Vostick's case, that the plot to kill Preimer Kosygin succeeds or, in cpl. Shaver's case, fails. Even though the film starts off a bit slow and lumbers on with a number of confusing story lines like the Dertoit mob hit-man Raymond "Raggs" Ragulin ,Richard Romanus. Why did the rouge KGB group need him to do what their experts in! Murder and kidnapping. Still the both stirring and heart thumping ending more then made up for all that.

The failure of this stylish thriller, financed by Lew Grade's ITC, effectively ended the directorial career of former Altman editor Lou Lombardo. It's true that "Russian Roulette" takes a while to get going and has an unnecessarily complex plot. However, Lombardo has a nice eye for detail, uses locations well (it is set in wintry Vancouver) and gets the best out of an eclectic cast."Russian Roulette" may start slowly but it builds to a cracking climax that is a tour de force of slick editing and exciting music (from the underrated Michael J Lewis). George Segal is well-cast and looks genuinely scared in the vertiginous rooftop shootout. Worth seeing.