Le Soviet

SSG Dodd: I saw the same showing with you on the UH trip in May 1986! We had to make an effort to find it on the outskirts of town. Our Intourist guide Nadia helped...

Film was a blast. Warched it tonight after 35 years after finding it finally. Very funny to see how Soviets viewed us at the time. I'm sure our perspectives were just as distorted. Though it is often called "The Russian Rambo" there is very little Rambo in it. Main character is a sympathetic character just wanting to get home and see his Dad.. Plenty if weapons to identify!

SSH Dodd...hope you still have the Soviet items we traded for Leningrad...

I remembered the publicity this movie received in 1986 in such publications as NEWSWEEK, and was curious to find out what it was like. I mail-ordered it from RBC Video in Brooklyn, NY. The movie, in its original Russian, reveals that the CIA appointed US Army major Jack Hessalt to be in charge of a secret missile base in the Atlantic Ocean. Jack is still troubled by memories of Vietnam, and soon goes berserk, taking control of the base and killing some crew members. Jack and his cronies commandeer a powerful missile and proceed to perform terrorism ... but they haven't counted on a rough-n-ready squad of Russian Marines who are determined to open a whole borscht-barrel of a*s-whuppin'. For an action movie, this isn't bad if you take into account that the Russian film- makers had NO access to huge Stallone- sized budgets and special effects. The level of production values for this mid-80's Soviet movie are about equal to what a mid-60's American movie would have.

This little action movie could be well forgotten now - finally, it is really not a gem of world's cinematography, but images of americans there are really memorable. I saw it first in Moscow cinema, being teenager, somewhere in 1986; recently I've seen it on TV, and realized with great wonder, that I really still can't find any flaws in "bad americans". Author go so far in their realism, that american missile base seems to be more technically equipped - say, I wouldn't expect such sliding doors with electronical code locks on our base.

Another noticeable thing is the fact that, AFAIK, this movie is THE ONLY Souviet film ever made which shows direct conflict between USSR and USA militaries, and even here, we have pair of quite positive americans. Compare it with endless legions of "evil russians" defeated by Rambo and other "heroes" in Hollywood movies.

I remember all the press calling this the Russian Rambo back in the '80's and now that I've seen it, it's obvious they never saw it. Even if they had spoken a word of Russian, which they probably didn't.

For starters, Solo Voyage doesn't even remotely take itself seriously. It was intentionally "bad" like Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, and it works: it's freaking hilarious. Without a doubt, it's not a copy of American superwarrior movies, its a parody.

The first 10 minutes are so "bad" that, if it were a serious movie, the whole audience would just go home immediately. Every bit of English dialogue is immediately translated by the narrator, and all the dialogue is in English for those first 10 minutes. The CIA agents and their capitalist bosses discuss their evil plan over a game of golf. Major Jack's flashbacks are a short montage of images that are at first violent-looking but at the end are as ordinary as pictures of people eating food. It's always exactly the same flashback too.

The film skillfully adapts American stereotypes to the super-villain role. CIA agents, rich golfers, insane Vietnam vets and... a young couple on a yacht. Not just on a yacht, in fact - they're seeking treasure too, for extra greed. The missile control center on the island base is just plain nuts: a fixed neon picture of the island, and a line of fixed LED lights up to a neon picture of a ship, and a line of off-course lights ending in a ... sailing yacht! It resembles nothing more than a diagram on a Lite-Brite from the '70's. Whoever designed it must have known months in advance that the missile would be fired at a ship and go astray and hit a sailboat.

The American accents being done right is another mockery. But the dialogue was done wrong in other ways as a lampoon. Often the Americans would talk in short bursts of a few words, pausing constantly to let the narrator catch up with them. On occasion they would talk slower than any American has probably ever talked. Check out the missile control officers, for example, when they prepare to launch. When the yachter meets the Russians, he says "yeah, I'm a capitalist." What American ever says that? It's a direct spoof of the Russian always saying "I am Soviet Communist." After the yachter's wife is killed and he finally realizes the Russians didn't do it, he joins up with the Marines with one motive: revenge. He's there in all the fighting, but once it ends, the film forgets all about him.

Enough about the Americans... a superwarrior movie is about the fighting, right? Well the Russians do some fighting all right, every bit of it funny and impossible. When they first land on the island, the Americans surround them and have them dead to rights. Just like Hollywood, they first drop their good weapons (assault rifles) and then suddenly fight their way out of it with knives. When they find their way into the hidden missile base, they run into a prone machine gunner in a hallway. One of the Marines trips the American yachtsman and they fire from a half-prone position, which in reality would be right in the path of the bullets. Tha naval battle involves the fantasy of anti-ballistic missiles actually working reliably.

The main hero is a spoof of Rambo too. He remarks about muzhestvennaya rabota after the battle, but he's no tough guy. He's a skinny 50-year-old with gray hair and he's nice to his men and to the American civilians too. He looks like a guy you'd see managing a small grocery store or owning an antique shop.

The articles I read about Solo Voyage mentioned the hero's death as a sign the Soviets had yet to learn about sequels. The media just didn't get it: a spoof doesn't need a sequel. In fact, killing the hero is just another lampoon of Hollywood's inability to kill the hero. They thought the USSR was copying them when in fact it was mocking them.

I saw this film in Moscow back in 1986, while on a student trip. I found it extremely entertaining. My Russian was (and still is) limited, but due to the unusual dubbing technique used (the "Americans" portrayed in the film actually spoke English, but with a voice-over translating in Russian), I was able to follow the story line pretty closely.

It was pretty amusing to see what the Soviets thought of American values back then - especially the scenes aboard an "US Navy" aircraft carrier. A news crew is aboard filming the carrier's crew during an exercise. While interviewing the captain (shown in his full dress white glory, puffing away on a cigar), in the background can be seen Heiniken Beer cans literally strewn about the deck.

The film's producers shot many of the scenes in Cuba (subbing in for the 'ol USA and the Pacific Island Command Post). This film is also notable in that it revealed the little-known fact that our armed forces (the Air Force, in particular) slap stylized name logos on just about every piece of ordinance in sight.

All in all, I am looking forward to finding this little gem on VHS - it's worth it!