Rating: 
Summary: Very romantic and very intelligent
Review: One of my favorites. Very romantic story, both in terms of its love story and its humanity. Sean Connery rises to the challenge of being a "decent human being" after much showy bravado. Wonderful soundtrack. Beautifully shot on location in Moscow. Come on and dream!
Rating:
Summary: Connery at his best
Review: Russia House is British playwright Tom Stoppard's effort to bring John LeCarre's book to the screen. Sean Connery owed Stoppard a favor and agreed to act in the lead role of an out-at-elbows publisher whose plays jazz clarinet and is equally talented on the whisky bottle. LeCarre likes to confront mildly despondent middle-aged men of middling talent with a challenge that might allow them to be small heroes. LeCarre's mini-supermen were interesting in his first dozen novels but American readers have grown heartily sick of the theme and many left Russia house collecting dust in the annual pile of unwanted Christmas gifts. Imagine the surprise of discovering that a movie based on an unreadable book turns out to be a masterpiece.
Director Fred Schepisi filmed Russia House in Moscow and Leningrad in the midst of Glasnot. The movie begins at a Russian book fair where a Moscow book agent Katia (played by Michelle Pfeiffer) comes to deliver a secret manuscript to "Boozy" Barley Blair (Sean Connery). His book stand is empty, he is absent. The manuscript makes its way into the hands of British Intelligence and turns out to be a technical treatise showing that the Soviet Union cannot "make solid (rocket) fuel worth s**t," its rockets "suck instead of blow," and they "could not hit Nevada on a clear day." Through a series a virtuoso flashbacks, fast-forwards and voice overs we learn that Blair loves Russia and Russians and that during one of his drunken rants at a retreat for Soviet writers he has inspired Russia's top rocket scientist to betray his country because as Blair has expounded in his cups "if we are to survive we must all betray our countries."
The plot of Russia House is too complex to describe in a few lines but the theme is simple. A country's system can be bad, but its people good. America and the Soviet Union are in the grips of weapons makers and generals who amplify their power by blowing up the threat each country poses the other. To tear down the lie that the cold war is the only peace possible between Soviets and Americans, Blair and his rocket scientist must disobey their superiors and turn coat, much as soldiers of the First World War did when they crossed no-man's land to shake hands. Stoppard somehow manages to get the message of Russia House across without stunning us with platitudes about geopolitics and even manages to squeeze in a love story that comes across as mature and moving.
This movie is to Sean Connery what Glenn Gary Glenn Ross was to Alec Baldwin. The script of Glenn Gary put an epic speech into Baldwin's mouth as the hectoring slave driver of pathetic real estate agents and showed the world that Baldwin could act. Connery has never been better than in Russia House nor has he worked with such an expert cast. Roy Scheider, Ken Russel, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Fox, Klaus Maria Brandauer, as well as the regular batch of talented British no-names give this movie the sort of punch that has not been seen since 12 Angry Men and Inherit the Wind.
Russia House is not for everyone. You will see no shootouts, no exposed breasts, no chases down busy streets. If you want a glimpse of the Soviet Union before its fall, brought to life by a crack troupe of actors at the top of their game then you need to see this movie. Again, and again.
Rating: 
Summary: A Strange, Poignant Tale Well Told
Review: The cold war defined the first 27 years of my professional life as an aerospace engineer. I left that profession with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and visited Moscow not long afterward. This story is a sort of elegy for the USSR, and was to some degree prescient. Like "Barley", I too am fond of Russians and things Russian, and I greatly enjoyed the scenery of Moscow and Leningrad. Viewing it brings back vivid memories of my visit there, the colleagues I met, and the persistent sense I had of one tremendous chapter of history having just closed, and the next but dimly apprehended.I have assembled a kind of personal "Cold War Archive", and this has an honored place in it along with "Smiley's People", & etc. It is a dandy story well told, not the usual "chase'm around and shoot'm up" action spy "thriller" of which we are all so tired. I give this four stars only because I believe the 5 star award in this category has been permanently retired with "Smiley's People".
Rating:
Summary: A Strange, Poignant Tale Well Told
Review: The cold war defined the first 27 years of my professional life as an aerospace engineer. I left that profession with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and visited Moscow not long afterward. This story is a sort of elegy for the USSR, and was to some degree prescient. Like "Barley", I too am fond of Russians and things Russian, and I greatly enjoyed the scenery of Moscow and Leningrad. Viewing it brings back vivid memories of my visit there, the colleagues I met, and the persistent sense I had of one tremendous chapter of history having just closed, and the next but dimly apprehended. I have assembled a kind of personal "Cold War Archive", and this has an honored place in it along with "Smiley's People", & etc. It is a dandy story well told, not the usual "chase'm around and shoot'm up" action spy "thriller" of which we are all so tired. I give this four stars only because I believe the 5 star award in this category has been permanently retired with "Smiley's People".
Rating:
Summary: Stoppard puts a Shakespearean Slant on LeCarre
Review: The hero of this adaptation reminds me of Falstaff, amplified no doubt by Stoppard's affinity with the Bard. A treat for fans of Stoppard/Shakespeare as much as LeCarre. Connery is terrific. Only wish that the Pfeiffer role were as well written.
Rating:
Summary: A Complex, Well Acted Spy Story
Review: The Russia House is a complex film that works on many levels. It uses location filming in Russia on a large scale, A very good group of actors are in the movie and all deliver fine performances, and it shows us the underground war British and CIA intelligence uses in trying to uncover information. The movie is very well edited, the screenplay does offer some pleasent surprises for the audience at certain points and Jerry Goldsmith's music is a wonderful blend of orechestra with elements of classic jazz.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Spy Movie
Review: The Russia House, with Sean Connery, is a wonderful spy thriller focusing on one man's dicision: his country, or his loved ones. With perhaps less action than Riley Ace of Spies, or any James Bond movie, this story is by far more touching than any of the afore mentioned. A beautiful story, the film was a very close adaption from leCarre's novel. A wonderful story, with great scenery from Russia, I recommend this movie whole-heartedly.
Rating: 
Summary: How to make a Cold War spy drama in the days of Glasnost
Review: This is a Tom Stoppard adaptation of a John Le Carré Book, but apart from the fact that it is a spy drama, this is a complete contrast from Le Carré's most famous work, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It's somehow less cynical, and more positive. Although Sean Connery's character Barley is a reluctant spy, you feel that if this were Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, he would have been killed for 'knowing too much' instead, the security services are quite civil to him, the worst he gets from them is raised eyebrows when he attempts independent operation. The story, set in the time of Glasnost makes some serious points which are a bit dated now, but were at the time an important change in the way in which spy dramas were written. The photography is marvellous and being filmed almost entirely on location, the vistas of Moscow and Lenningrad are like one long tourist advertisement. Jerry Goldsmith's usually excellent music is let down here by being too intrusive, almost as though the film's producers couldn't bear to leave any part of the soundtrack unfilled. By contrast, the clarinet playing of Branford Marsalis is appropriate and sublime, even if Connery hasn't quite got the hang of miming the thing! Sean Connery himself, as with all the players turn in strong performances, although it's a little unrealistic that someone 28 years younger than he would fall in love with him (I bet the ages were closer in the book!) especially as his make-up and wig aren't as 'young' as they usually are.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent spy saga and love story
Review: this is one of the great underrated films of the '90's.... a terrific movie that succeeds on many levels... as an acting vehicle for two stars with a tangible chemistry... as a well-plotted post cold war spy tale... as a stunningly beautiful-looking film, shot on location in russia.. and as a truly hopeful love story of two small and troubled people triumphing against the will of not one enormous State System, but three.... Oh, yeah, the music soundtrack is perfect... Guess this is a rave... This film should be released on DVD.
Rating:
Summary: A welcome change from overwrought missions impossible
Review: When the rusty Iron Curtain disintegrated during Gorbachev's glasnost, Hollywood filmmakers finally got access to the image-rich expanse of Mother Russia for location shoots. Whereas before, when scenes of "Moscow" or "Leningrad" were actually filmed in, say, Helsinki, now American theatergoers can gaze upon the real thing. On viewing THE RUSSIA HOUSE for the first time, I was thrilled to see the onion domes and other architectural glories of Moscow and Suzdal, which I had seen in person several years before. Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer are Barley and Katya in the screen adaptation of John le Carré's novel of the same title. Barney is the world-weary and alcoholic London publisher to whom a book manuscript is smuggled by the Russian Katya, a woman Barley claims most emphatically not to know. Since the document is actually a survey of the status of Soviet defense weaponry, the British Secret Service, which intercepted the manuscript, views Barley's disclaimer as tepid at best. After intense questioning, and a call upon his loyalty to Queen and Empire, Barley is persuaded to return to Moscow to meet Katya, and determine her source of information. The latter turns out to be Dante, a well-respected physicist embedded in the Soviet defense establishment, who is known to British intelligence and is also Katya's boyfriend. Finally realizing the identity and potential value of the contact, MI6 approaches the CIA with a proposal for a continuing joint operation using Barley as the field agent. The moneyed Americans, of course, insist on playing the dominant mission controller, relegating the Brits to the role of interested observer. A criticism of this film was that it's too boring. Not so, if one accepts and understands that le Carré's plots are not action oriented by design. Rather, they revolve around character evolution and relatively subtle confrontations that are more intellectual and psychological than physical. Le Carré's books are, admittedly, an acquired taste, and not for the shallow-minded. The filmed version of THE RUSSIA HOUSE is true to its literary roots. There are here no feats of 007-like derring-do confounding the evildoers on missions impossible. The storyline unfolds at a comparatively sedate, realistic pace. The casting was perfect. Veterans Connery and Pfeiffer are magnificent together. The latter's portrayal of a Slavic damsel-in-distress is especially convincing. James Fox as the urbane, gentlemanly MI6 controller serves as the perfect foil to the abrasive, take-no-prisoners (stereotypically Yank) attitude of his CIA counterpart, played by Roy Scheider. Klaus Brandauer as Dante is appropriately enigmatic. The location cinematography is visually sumptuous. After awhile, one gets weary of the steady diet of action spy thrillers that rampage across the silver screen. As a change of gait, THE RUSSIA HOUSE is supremely satisfying, especially the bittersweet ending. I loved it.
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