Russian Roulette (1975)

Director:

Lou Lombardo

Writers:

Stanley Mann (writer)
Arnold Margolin (writer)

Release Date:

20 August 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

An RCMP officer is ordered to discreetly take a Russian immigrant into custody in advance of a state visit by the Soviet premier. When his prisoner is kidnapped, the officer is drawn into a complicated assasination scheme. |

Plot Keywords:

Assassination Plot | Human Bomb | KGB | Rcmp | Based On Novel

Cast

George Segal	...	Cpl. Timothy Shaver
Cristina Raines	...	Bogna Kirchoff
Bo Brundin	...	Col. Sergi Vostick
Denholm Elliott	...	Commander Petapiece
Gordon Jackson	...	Hardison
Peter Donat	...	Insp. Peter McDermott
Richard Romanus	...	Raymond Ragulin
Nigel Stock	...	Ferguson
Val Avery	...	Rudolph Henke
Louise Fletcher	...	Midge
Graham Jarvis	...	Bension, RCMP
Constantine Gregory	...	Samuel (as Constantin de Goguel)
Jacques Sandulescu	...	Gorki, KGB Goon
Wally Marsh	...	Taggart
Hagan Beggs	...	Kavinsky

Runtime:

Finland:87 min | USA:93 min

Country:

Canada | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Netherlands:12 | Australia:PG | Sweden:15 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Company:

Bulldog

Spin the Barrel

***SPOILERS*** Tense and high wire-like thriller set in the Canadian city of Vancouver about an attempted assassination of Soviet Primer Kosygin by a rouge KGB group thats in charge of his protection.

With the Cold War winding down it looks like the USSR will cut it's military expenditures including those for the dreaded KGB. This has a number of KGB officers led by Col. Sergi Vostick, Bo Brundin, in a panic. Charged to protect Primer Kosygin on his visit to Vancouver Col. Vostic plans to have a CIA informer and violent anti-Communist Rudolf Heke, Val Avery, who hates the Soviet Union for what it did to him and his family in Soviet-controlled Latvia, to blow himself up and take Preimer Kosygin with him. The only thing wrong with that is that Heke doesn't know that he's going to do it.

RCMP, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, cpl. Shavers, George Seagal, who's on suspension for belting his boss Inspector McDermott, Peter Donat, in contacted by the Special Branch, the Canadian CIA, commander Petepice, Denholm Elliott, to see that Heke is kept off the streets until the Kosygin visit is over.

After being kidnapped and held hostage with his girlfriend Bogna, Christina Raines, who works in the Royal Mounted Police record room and gave cpl. Shavers the vital information that he needed to find out just who Henke really is, a CIA undercover informant, did he realize just who was out to get Soviet Perimer Kosygin, and it sure wasn't Rudolf Henke. By having Kosygin assassinated in a western country that borders on the USA it would re-start the Cold war and provide all the funds and manpower the KGB would ever need. As well as reinforce the iron-grip that the KGB have on that nation.

The movie "Russian Roulette" builds up to an exciting final as cpl. Shavers breaks out, together with Bogna, from the rouge KGB's captors hideout and against the clock speeds down, with a borrowed 1960 car low on gas, to the Vancouver Hotel in Vancouver. Shavers then tries to prevent Col. Vostick and his thugs from possibly starting WWIII in order to hold on to their power. With the KGB's conspirators commandeering a police helicopter with Henke drugged and tied on it, together with a number of explosives attached to his body, they plan to do Premier Kosygin in before he gets to the hotel.

Cpl. Shavers has the almost impossible task to first get away from Col. Vostic, who's trying to shoot him, as they both jockey for position on the roof of the 16 floor 200 foot Vancouver Hotel to either make sure, in Col. Vostick's case, that the plot to kill Preimer Kosygin succeeds or, in cpl. Shaver's case, fails.

Even though the film starts off a bit slow and lumbers on with a number of confusing story lines like the Dertoit mob hit-man Raymond "Raggs" Ragulin ,Richard Romanus. Why did the rouge KGB group need him to do what their experts in! Murder and kidnapping. Still the both stirring and heart thumping ending more then made up for all that.