Sunday, June 14, 2020

Neglected Gem: The Russia House (1990)

Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer in The Russia House (1990).

When Australian director Fred Schepisi’s 2001 film Last Orders came out, the best film of that year (yes, even better than the first installment of The Lord of the Rings), I read with astonishment a critic’s description of Schepisi as a “good, second-tier director.” The director of Barbarosa (1982), Roxanne (1987), A Cry in the Dark (1988), Six Degrees of Separation (1993), and Lost Orders a second-tier director? What the hell does a guy have to do to move into the first tier?