Archangel
by Jon Jones
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Actor: Alexey Diakov, Daniel Craig, Ekaterina Rednikova, Gabriel Macht, Lev PrygunovDirector: Jon Jones
Producer: Christopher Hall
Producer: Jessica Pope
Producer: Justin Bodle
Producer: Laura Mackie
Writer: Dick Clement
Writer: Ian La Frenais
Writer: Robert Harris
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); Russian (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 133 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-11-07
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Mti Home Video
DVD Reviews of Archangel
DVD Review: A fine made-for-TV British thriller starring Daniel Craig, based on the even finer novel by Robert Harris
Summary: 4 Stars
If movie thrillers can be thoughtful, literate and exciting -- and with no computer-created mega-explosions -- this fine British TV adaptation of the Robert Harris novel does the job. Archangel stars Daniel Craig and was made before Craig hit the big time as James Bond. Without the Bond fervor, this little-known film might never have been released on DVD. It tells the story of British professor Fluke Kelso (Craig), a middle-aged man who had made a name for himself with impeccable research on Soviet history, concentrating on the life and career of Josef Stalin. Two flashy, best-selling books made him a star in academia. But for the last three years, Kelso has been drifting through a burned-out life of dissatisfaction. That will change dramatically when, at a Moscow symposium attended by other historians, he is approached by a coarse old man, Papu Rapava, with a story of the last hours of Stalin. Rapava had been a guard for Lavrenti Beria when Georgy Malenkov calls Beria and pleads with him to come immediately to Blizhny, the name for Stalin's dacha outside Moscow. Stalin is dying of a massive stroke. Beria, shrewd and ruthless, takes the little key Stalin always carried. With the key and with Rapava driving, Beria races to the Kremlin and finds a small metal box locked away in Stalin's office. And in the box are some papers which Beria buries late that night in the yard of his Moscow fortified home, with Rapava digging the hole. When Beria was arrested and executed, Rapava was tortured to tell about the box. He said he knew nothing, guessing he'd be executed, too, if the new masters of the Kremlin suspected anything. He spent years in a gulag, but he lived. Well, that's the story Papu Rapava told Kelso.
In the next four days Kelso finds the box has been dug up and is missing. He'll meet Zinaida (Yekaterina Rednikova), a sullen Russian call girl who turns out to be Rapava's estranged daughter. He'll talk with Mamantov, a clever and unrepentant ex-Soviet senior official who now is running for office in the new Russia. He'll encounter O'Brian (Gabriel Macht), a big, friendly American television reporter who seems to know almost as much as Kelso. And he'll find the bloody, naked body of Rapava, tortured and left for dead in the grimy bathtub of an abandoned apartment.
Kelso is not sure what to believe. He's attacked by two thugs. Papu Rapava's daughter suddenly decides to help find the box. Major Suvorin of the FSB picks him up and tells him to be on the next flight out of Moscow. All the while Kelso knows that if he can find the box, read those long-ago documents and publish what he reads, he and his career will flash right back to the top again. When Kelso and Zinaida finally locate the box and read the papers, they find themselves reading the stained and mouldering diary of a girl thrilled to leave her home in Archangel to go to Moscow and serve the great father, Stalin. They find her medical records and reports from the NKVD on her family. They realize she bore a child, a boy, after she was sent back to Archangel, and that she died days after giving birth. The boy was adopted. Kelso and Zinaida leave for Archangel just before the winter snows arrive. And in the deep, frigid forests north of Archangel, Kelso, with O'Brian tagging along, encounters man-traps, a silent, abandoned collection of wooden huts...with smoke drifting from one of them. So now bring on the paranoia, ruthlessness, an attack by the Spetsnaz, death and a desperate escape. Bring on what the new Russia might revert to.
Archangel is a thoughtful thriller, but with enough excitement and momentum to keep things moving. It follows the book closely. The DVD looks very good. As an extra it includes the bios of Craig and Macht. Unfortunately, the book's fascinating re-creation of the Stalin gang has had to be reduced. Beria, Malenkov, Bulganin, Khrushchev, Molotov...after a few vodkas, Stalin would make them dance. Nearly all of the cast is Russian, with the movie filmed entirely in Moscow and Riga, Latvia. The movie looks overcast and cold, with frigid, drizzling weather. What makes Archangel work so well are the "what if" speculations by Robert Harris and Daniel Craig's fine performance. Craig has a rough face, not quite handsome. He can dominate a scene. He's also a mature actor with experience and versatility. Compare the job he does in Love Is the Devil as the slow-witted gay lover of Francis Bacon with the hetro-active, action-minded James Bond. I hope the James Bond franchise doesn't turn Craig into just another star-enhanced pretty face.
For those who like to read, give the novels by Robert Harris a chance. Two of his finest include Fatherland and Enigma. In my opinion, the movie Enigma, with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard, is a fine, clever and thoughtful thriller. And for those who enjoy Archangel, both the book and the movie, try Robin White's novel, Siberian Light. It's another first-class, frigid thriller set in the frozen lands of Siberia, with an interesting, thinking hero.
Archangel
Enigma
Enigma (Special Edition)
Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon
Siberian Light
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