I am surprised that everybody's giving high points for "Statskiy Sovetnik". I guess, gentlemen, you are afraid to use the word BORING for this movie. The book of Boris Akunin has a very interesting plot, i've read it almost in one breath. And in the movie I watched only long dialogs and simplified action scenes. Here are more things that I did not like:
- Mikhalkov plays his role in such a manner that you can guess, that Pozarski is the major enemy - Menshikov is not convincing, I liked the actor in "Turkish gambit" much better - I think the director did not show the viewer the psychological portraits, the inner world of his heroes. This is the worse feature of this movie. You can see only raw acting. - I noticed that Mikhalkov is paranoid about imperialistic idea of GREAT Russia, and he influenced the work of Yankowski who didn't make an action- spy movie (which i expected), but a long monologue about Fate of Russia.