BEFORE: Woody Allen film #8 - both he and Diane Keaton carry over from "Sleeper". We're heading into Oscar weekend, so I'm right where I want to be - covering the films of a man who's received 19 nominations and 3 awards, and that's for individual achievement, not including the other ones his films received or the countless actors and actresses that have received Oscars or noms for appearing in his films.
THE PLOT: In czarist Russia, a neurotic soldier and his distant cousin formulate a plot to assassinate Napoleon.
AFTER: Most of these Woody Allen films so far have had that "fish out of water" element to them, and this one follows right in step with that. But it was hard to take him seriously as a Russian man, raised to hate Jews, imagining himself on a crucifix, when he continued to act like a modern Jewish guy from New York. I know, I'm not supposed to take him seriously, but there was still something of a disconnect. It was easier to believe him playing a man who was frozen for 200 years.
Having him join the Russian army seemed like an opportunity to repeat some of the sight gags from "Bananas", only training with Russian rifles and cannons instead of with grenades. And having him in love with an unobtainable woman played by Diane Keaton hearkens back to "Play It Again, Sam". So this seemed like an attempt to apply Allen's formulas to an absurdist period piece, and parts of that just didn't work.
I did enjoy the complicated philosophical debates (if love is happiness, and love is suffering, then logically happiness = suffering. That's surreal.) And the homage to Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin" - all that was missing was a baby carriage bouncing down a staircase. The whole rest of the film was intended as a send-up of the work of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, which unfortunately was enough to put me to sleep in the middle.
Also starring Harold Gould, Jessica Harper (last seen in "Pennies From Heaven"), Tony Jay, James Tolkan (yes, the mean teacher from "Back to the Future" plays Napoleon!)
RATING: 3 out of 10 bayonets
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