I own this mainly because of Jeff Goldblum, so I wasn't expecting much in the way of real entertainment, but was more or less watching this for Mr. Goldblum's performance. I think he's one of the best actors in the business. I did not discover until after the fact that this film was based on actual events, and I had to go watch it again.

Aside from beautiful performances by all three principals, the story itself has a wonderful flow, which works brilliantly with the material and weaves a highly enjoyable experience.

This is an entertaining experience, but it also shows how desperate the Russians were to do something better for themselves, in spite of communist influences still in place. It also allows us a small peek into the corrupt offices of our own politicians...we already know they will do anything to get elected. This just proves those suspicions and marks them as "well known" and "public knowledge."

On a side note, I found this information here at IMDb and paraphrased it for those of you who are interested. "While the film portrays all three of the men in Russia during the whole campaign, our three consultants (Gorton-Goldlum, Dresner-LaPaglia, and Shumate-Shreiber) were in truth flying in and out over those five months, or so. They left one person in the US as a security precaution to ensure that the other two could leave when desired, and one younger member was left in Russia the whole time. Oddly enough, he was omitted from the movie. It was his notes they used to draft a screenplay, by the way.

The hotel portrayed in the movie was the "President Hotel," known as the "Oktiabraskaya" during Soviet Times. Each room in this hotel was equipped with gas masks, and the hotel compound was rumored to be secretly linked to the Moscow metro system for occupants to escape or guards and extra security to arrive. After the Yeltsin campaign, Gorton went on to be Arnold Schwarzenegger's political consultant, running Arnold's first campaign.

The furniture-stacking scene is something that really happened, and happened more than once. The consultants' paranoia is well founded. During the 1996 election cycle in Russia, the campaign manager for the mayor of St. Petersburg had acid thrown in his face, and the running mate for the mayor of Moscow was critically injured in a car bomb." As I said, those words were paraphrased, but they may allow you a little behind the scenes knowledge as to the origins of this movie. Insider info like that tends to help me embrace the work more. Hope it does the same for you.

All in all? It's not Friday/Saturday night viewing material by any means, but it IS better than a rainy Sunday's tedium relief.

It rates a 7.9/10 from...

the Fiend :.

Kind of a fun premise. And it's allegedly a true story! Boris yeltsin hires the same pr guys who worked for arnold schwarzenegger to help yeltsin get elected in russia. Jeff goldblum, tony lapaglia, liev schreiber. When they arrive, they have a hard time meeting with anyone, and no-one wants to hear their plan. And they act surprised when they realize their rooms are bugged. Big shocker there. But now yeltsin and his daughter are finally listening to their suggestions. At least some of them. They explain election tricks that probably even a lot of murricans didn't know happened. Watching this is extra meaningful right now, since when it was made, russia was swinging back to capitalism, but under the next regimes, its swinging back to communism. Or some version of that, which has been hard for the common workers. A good lesson in how the leader, and his circle (for good, or for bad) sets the rules from the top down. Directed by roger spottiswoode; he did one james bond film, and of course, 48 hours, among many other films.

We have a very good plot here when 3 presidential consultants in campaign making are enlisted to go to Russia and work on the campaign of candidate Boris Yeltsin.

We see that because the Russians are so unfamiliar with democracy, ideas of dirty tricks, campaigning with a message, negative campaigning, kissing babies, etc. is all literally foreign to them.

The problem with the potentially good film is with the actors here. Jeff Goldblum, Anthony La Paglia and Liev Schrieber really don't allow their characters to develop and frankly all three are unusually dull. Luckily, it's the story-line in this film that carries it through somewhat.

The movie does turn a little dramatic after being comical for the first part. Again, it is the Russian inexperience with democracy that really comes through here. Cancel an election? Surprising concept, but easy for the Russians to understand.

Of course, by film's end, the Russians have learned to play the political game.