Sean Connery is a publisher and saxophone player swept up in Cold War antics as an agent trying to smuggle scientific secrets of some sort out of Russia and into the West.
I never liked the soprano saxophone. I don't know why it exists. It's usually too shrill and is associated with supermarkets, cheap commercials, and Kenny G. Why isn't the clarinet good enough, hey? This is one sluggish movie and a bit complicated, as the author's plots tend to be. It's redeemed by the shenanigans of the CIA/MI5 or MI6, a group of puppeteers behind Connery and his contact, Michelle Pfeiffer, led by a hot-headed Roy Scheider and a dry, ironic James Fox. J. T. Walsh -- my co-star in the superlative "Windmills of the Gods", or what it "Rage of Angels?", I forget -- is the ironbound US Army officer who suspects everyone of being a ComSymp and wants to bomb them all -- "a hard-head from the ***hole up," as someone describes him.
They put Connery through a lie detector test to make sure he's not a commie, and the scene puts on display the movie's most charming feature -- its witty screenplay.
The wily interrogators ask Connery about his politics, his motives, his past. "Have you ever associated with any musicians with known anarchist tendencies?" Connery frowns thoughtfully. "Well, there was one trombone player. Willie Brown was his name. He was the only musician I've ever known who was completely devoid of any anarchist tendencies." The performances are uniformly good, even Roy Scheider who seems about to stroke out at any moment and who shouts scatological imprecations. I think the role calls for it. I can't understand why all the men are so awfully sun tanned though. The weather in Moscow and St. Petersberg are about what we can expect -- more clouds of gray than any Russian play could guarantee.
The photography of Russian cities and their monuments is memorable.
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