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First matinee was packed with old farts such as myself. Drawn in by the teasing trailers and waiting with bated breath for some JLaw flesh. So, let the disappointments begin!
JLaw as a Bolshoi girl? Those gams are hams along with a slight GaGa tummy. Disqualified! I wonder if she actually did any of the dancing or was it digital-painting?
Premise: JLaw is a dancer and takes care of her very sick mother. She lives in a Bolshoi apartment and performs as a lead. One night a career-ending accident happens and her "uncle" (Schoenaerts) offers to help her. He enrolls her in Sparrow School (started by Kruschev) to become a seductress and intel gathering operative.
Rampling is the chief instructor who puts all the students through grueling humiliations which provide the viewer with a small smattering G&M relief. Rampling is good as a modern day Rosa Kleb. JLaw has a rough time of it even knowing that failure equals a skull shot.
Seen as having potential, she is sent to Budapest to meet, seduce, and pump Edgerton for vital information pertaining to an American mole. Mission accomplished, naturally. (JLaw wasn't talking politics so who wouldn't?)
This is a long movie. It shows JLaw's training and involvement with Edgerton, her uncle, the head of spies (JIrons), and dealing with co-spies and section chiefs.
The story was drawn out which was exacerbated by JLaw's Rooshan accent and omnipresent bangs (which emphasized her high Russian cheekbones?). She was unusually glamorous looking all tarted-up but deadpanned a lot in order to be a really somber Russian. The locations and art direction were spot on but the near rambling story started to drag long before the two-hour mark. (And it goes past the two-hour mark.)
This seemed to have all the local color and characters of an early James Bond film. It had an eerily familiar feel to me. There are a few twists in the film but not the "knocked me over with a feather" kind.
Good for popcorn but not a serious drama or action film. I give it three wonks for production values and one wank for JLaw's accent, bangs, and Russian characterization.
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