Val Kilmer plays a mysterious thief who has great skills including as a master of disguise. Ivan Tretiak hires him to steal the formula for cold fusion from American scientist Emma Russel (Elisabeth Shue).
This is sort of like a Bond movie if James Bond put on ugly disguises in silly voices and steals for himself. The disguises look too silly. It diminishes the attempt to be cool and relevant. Instead of silly disguises, it should really concentrate on the spy tradecrafts. Val Kilmer does an internal dialog which could be better used to highlight his skills. The other problem is that there are too much Russian in this. I don't understand why Russia would have a heating oil crisis. It tries to be exotic, but ends up as unsatisfying.
There is also the minor problem of Elisabeth Shue. She's supposed to be this weird loner scientist, and she doesn't have that persona. And she plays it as a love sick puppy to one of Val Kilmer's fake character. She is the all American girl next door, and they need a quirky scientist type. And the point is to get somebody else to replicate her results which means she's supposed to write out the experiment for them to try. It's a stupid idea that she would write out the formula and stuff it in her bra. I want to like this for Elisabeth Shue, but this is too silly.
This is sort of like a Bond movie if James Bond put on ugly disguises in silly voices and steals for himself. The disguises look too silly. It diminishes the attempt to be cool and relevant. Instead of silly disguises, it should really concentrate on the spy tradecrafts. Val Kilmer does an internal dialog which could be better used to highlight his skills. The other problem is that there are too much Russian in this. I don't understand why Russia would have a heating oil crisis. It tries to be exotic, but ends up as unsatisfying.
There is also the minor problem of Elisabeth Shue. She's supposed to be this weird loner scientist, and she doesn't have that persona. And she plays it as a love sick puppy to one of Val Kilmer's fake character. She is the all American girl next door, and they need a quirky scientist type. And the point is to get somebody else to replicate her results which means she's supposed to write out the experiment for them to try. It's a stupid idea that she would write out the formula and stuff it in her bra. I want to like this for Elisabeth Shue, but this is too silly.