Russian TV has kept us up too late again! First Top Gun was on, a cheeseball classic in anyone's book (movie-nerd trivia about the movie here), no doubt, and then U Turn, which probably has a cult following, if that, in the US, but is quite popular on Russian broadcast TV - probably because the film has an unhappy ending where (apparently) everyone dies. Plus J-Lo in one of the major roles (before she was J-Lo), but I would rather think that has nothing to do with it.
This was after we got home from watching the new Russian action movie "Lichniy Nomer" ("Serial Number"), which was actually quite good for what it is - a shoot-em-up with a plot lifted from the headlines and conspiracy theories of Putin-era Russia. I can't really provide a synopsis without ruining the ending, but suffice it to say that it has a Berezovsky-like oligarch-in-exile cutting deals with Arab terrorists and pulling strings to get Chechens involved as well; Brit actress Louise Lombard as a tenacious foreign female journalist for a CNN-like international news network; Arab terrorists who say "Allahu Akhbar" way too much; an FSB agent who is videotaped confessing to the infamous apartment bombings; a hostage takeover in Moscow involving lots of children; and a bit of joint US-Russian ass-kicking, war-on-terror style, featuring American actor John Amos as an admiral with some role in NATO.
Although the foregoing list might make you think otherwise, the movie is definitely worth seeing, so check it out when it comes your way. Given that it was "presented" by Sibneft, ORT (also known as Russian Channel 1 - the upside of this is that Katya Andreeva makes a cameo as...a newsreader!), and at least one Russian veteran's organization, the patriotism is not as overbearing as you might expect, although there are moments when Russian armed forces display rather unrealistic levels of organization and competence. The movie's website is pretty well-done and worth checking out.
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