Review of Gorky Park (1983) by Martin F — 05 Jan 2013

It has a good concept and the set up is nice, but the final culmination is a little lacking. Also, when you have all your Russians speaking English it really makes it confusing when you have characters coming in who are supposed to be American. When you need a piece of dialogue to tell you that a character is speaking a different language you have a problem. How can you tell if he's supposed to be speaking Russian or not? Or is he supposed to be speaking Russian the whole time?

Nevertheless, the acting is solid and the direction superb. The opening scene with the ominous music is made even eerier by the innocent fun the camera is showing, and the camera following behind the girl's ice skates (in themselves a key plot point) is a brilliant touch. Setting a fairly conventional murder mystery in Soviet Russia may be a bit gimmicky, but at least it's a good gimmick.