Nothing works in this absolutely witless teen fantasy, a lame Hitchcock rip-off about a stolen Russian icon and the plucky young American tourist who has to find it, pursued all the while by Soviet cops, Mafia killers, American embassy stooges, the Russian Orthodox Church, evil art dealers, assorted black marketeers (including a presumably desperate Roman Polanski), and the lovely Natalya Negoda, doing a somewhat sanitized variation of her delinquent character role from 'Little Vera'. Why travel all the way to Russia to make such a bone-headed, embarrassing movie, when even the local actors are so unconvincing? The answer is obvious: the film looks as if it was produced by the Moscow Tourist Council, with the full support of a government anxious for western currency, and eager to cash in on the promotional value of a slick, action-packed comedy caper filmed in their backyard. Ship this one to a distant Gulag.
Review of Back in the U.S.S.R.
