Opération Archangel

This BBC series is actually a fine portrayal of the historical intrigues and factual discrepancies that surround the Stalinist era. To many students of history the story told about the end of Stalin's life has been officially tailored for minimum controversy. This series piques the conspiracy fanatic to see beyond the need for popular 007-esque shoot-em-up scenes from Daniel Craig, and delves more fully into the cultural dissonance and still-oppressed lifestyles in today's Russia. It takes the more informed audience to see that the story challenges a western viewer to understand life in today's Russia. To realize the present generational conflict among both anti- and pro-soviet era senior citizens and the contemporary Russian society who are trying to justify the need for genuine freedom, even if to understand mistakes of the past.

As a big fan of history and Russian culture, I was excited to watch this movie but didn't expect very much from a TV production. Useless to say that this movie is a must seen for anyone who likes Russian history, society and lifestyle. But it is also easy to watch and understand for someone who doesn't know much about the topic because most of the sings are told in the interesting past sequences of the movie. I've travelled to Russia and seen and lived a lot of particular things there and must admit that the behaviours of the police, the military and the government in this movie are not a stupid cliché but quite close to reality. Even the locations chosen for the shootings remind me of the modern Russian post-soviet lifestyle even though most of the scenes have been filmed in Latvia.

Well, I got largely surprised as this movie is really intense and has a realistic scenario that makes you think a lot about nowadays's societies and ideologies. The movie is really entertaining and I have watched it several times without getting bored at all. The characters and the story are well and profoundly developed. The surprising element in the movie is not such a big twist but that isn't negative because the main idea is quite original and the maintain of the tension is always guaranteed in this movie. The movie's finale is dramatically and interesting.

The most positive surprise in this movie is the acting of Daniel Craig. I've always known him as the cool, emotionless and somehow mediocre James Bond actor but he is really convincing in this movie. He plays with emotions, with conviction and with an unknown diversity. The only time he played as well was in "Defiance" which you would also like if you like this movie.

I really can recommend this entertaining and surprisingly well done and produced movie even though most of the critics are actually too negative.

A great cast and premise goes absolutely nowhere. Characters are shallow and have no discernible arcs. The plot seems interesting at first but can't back up the initial promise. The visual style is bland and muddy throughout.

I kept thinking "this will come through with a great ending"... until about halfway through the final episode when I realized this was going to crash with a thud. Characters who seemed to be important started dying, and an ending that made everything that came before utterly useless. What a waste of time and talents.

All the old clichés are rolled out early in this adaptation of Robert Harris's spy novel 'Archangel': surly Russians, an arrogant English hero, a garrulous American. There's also a certain amount of expository dialogue: in an early scene, a leading academic makes a speech to a conference in which he makes the dramatic revelation that Stalin was evil. 'Archangel' is certainly no 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy', and the thin characterisation makes the early stages tedious to watch. But in the middle, it improves greatly, as a conventional but tautly scripted thriller begins to take shape. Sadly, the ending can't quite deliver on this promise; both because of the risible suggestion that megalomania is an inherited quality, and also because it is surely not (as the film suggests) the worship of Stalin's image that is the real problem in today's Russia, but rather, the social circumstances which make such an absurdity possible. Still, it's always interesting to get a glimpse of the great Russian north on camera, and lead actress Yekaterina Rednikova looks very sexy smoking a cigarette. But overall, this is routine stuff.

Ok, ok. All good. But not getting that no one else is getting that the boy, AT A MINIMUM, would be 65 years old this year. Senior died in 1953