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The film has a mute special effects artist, Billy Hughes (Marina Sudina), witnessing a snuff killing in a dilapidated Russian studio. She's the only witness and soon finds herself being chased by crooks, policemen, policemen masquerading as crooks, crooks masquerading as policemen...well you get the idea. To this admittedly wafer-thin premise, Waller has applied lavish amounts of style, dark humour and snappy direction. From the death-scene beginning to the pay-off at the end, he manages to hold onto the viewer's attention whilst he wheels out another trick.
The chase scene through the building is well done and highlights the difference between this film and many other damsel in distress movies. Here the heroine doesn't wait around but instead gets herself out of trouble pretty well, unfortunately there's normally more just around the corner. What character's there are reasonably played by the mixed American/Russian cast but it is Sudina, as the title character, who lights up this film with her spirited and communicative performance -- difficult when you consider that she has no lines of speech whatsoever.
Unfortunately, due to the move to Russia a lot of the supporting cast don't speak English and we have to put up with some hilariously bad dubbing. Not withstanding this, Waller has managed to create a film that pokes fun at all the clichés of the genre and succeeds even though the film is teetering on the brink of mediocrity. And it does have an appearance by a "Mystery Star".
Neil P. Chue Hong.
npch@tardis.ed.ac.uk
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