Complotto al Cremlino

Red King, White Knight is a glossy UK/USA television movie made in 1989. Its premise quickly became dated with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990.

Set at the time of Mikhail Gorbachev as the reforming premier of the Soviet Union. Stoner (Tom Skerritt) is an alcoholic ex-CIA agent who cannot get over the suicide of his wife.

Now he is forced out of retirement as the Americans have come across some information that Gorbachev might be assassinated by Russian hardliners led by Tulayev (Tom Bell.)

Stoner has to get in touch with the man who has more details of the plot and smuggle him out of the Iron curtain. Only Tulayev gets to the defector first.

He also gets in touch with his former lover Anna (Helen Mirren) who he abandoned to her fate of a possible long prison sentence. Also on the horizon is old foe Szaz (Max von Sydow) sent to stop Stoner.

In Washington the politicians are not sure how much to help Gorbachev. They also fear the consequences of the liberalisation of the Soviet Union. The impact of the environment with more countries enjoying rampant consumerism.

This is a stodgy story, pretty standard television fare. Good acting, thinly sketched characters and a dull script.

It perks up with the action sequences later on. Part inspired by The Day of the Jackal.

It was a nice touch when the American advisors looked at the long term consequences of the ending of communism. That was prescient.

Mirren and Bell would later reunite in Prime Suspect.