Obratnyy otschet

I accidentally saw this on the Movies 4 Men satellite channel and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. An unashamed action movie, it has all the classical elements of a Hollywood blockbuster, and borrows the "loose cannon" hero motif but with added Russian "Quirkiness." It features many elements of modern TV drama productions such as CSI and 24 but also a has few new tricks up its directors sleeve. Without a doubt, it has the best movie bomb scene in-joke I've ever seen! Altogether a very entertaining surprise, what with this and "Night Watch," Russian movies are getting better all the time. If you enjoy this you may wish to check out the very different but also very good, "The Last Armoured Train," another Russian movie also being shown on the Movies 4 Men channel.

"Moscow Mission" follows the efforts of a 5-member Russian anti-terrorist unit to locate and capture an international terrorist who is responsible for a series of bomb explosions around the world and whose next target seems to be located somewhere in Moscow. A slickly made, well-produced film, "Moscow Mission" shows that Russian cinema is not limited to political or art films, but can make Hollywood-style genre pictures as well. Admittedly the film is a little different from what I expected: I thought it would be along the lines of the German "The Clown", filled with large-scale stunts and explosions, but it is more of a "race-against-time" suspense thriller, with a strong emphasis on computers / technology. The pace is frenetic but the action itself is limited: there is one long and intense fight between the "new recruit" of the team and the terrorist's bomb expert (I won't mention the setting or the details), but it is somewhat spoiled by too many MATRIX-like gimmicks. The team of the "good guys" is certainly offbeat, with the character of the blind guru who can "sense" if and where explosives are placed requiring quite some suspension of disbelief. The two women involved (a profiler and a computer hacker) are beautiful, with Anastasiya Makeyeva in particular showing legs on the level of Anne Hathaway in "Get Smart". **1/2 out of 4.

Just like the previous comment, I also caught this on the said Sky TV channel.....at 6am in the morning??!! Only saw the last 20mins but agree, very adequate action film by the look of it. Over use of the slow-mo though, The Matrix has a lot to answer for in terms of visual style in action cinema across the world - think of 'Kung Fu Hustle' and the like....granted the Watchowski's borrowed it from John Woo in his 'Hard Boiled' hay-day....only to make it better and spew back out to the film making world. Again I agree, Russia's producing some good stuff, easily equal to some of the films from Hollywood critics are giving the thumbs up to.