Everything goes wrong here, but gradually and only by small details, the tragedy being triggered by some children storming around in an apartment house, disturbing a delicate operation of briefing, leading to the wrong man getting classified information by accident. That gradúally puts Tom Skerritt on the job, who doesn't want it, who is compelled by circumstances to accept it and who involuntarily does all he can to bungle it. He is the problem here, as he constantly loses control and is utterly careless about his behaviour in the former Soviet Union, where he should have been aware that everyone was watching him as an alien and sometimes rampant American. Max von Sydow does all he can to help this delicate mission clear out of the extremely perilous shallows and actually seems to succeed, while his contact with KGB never is followed up - the one flaw in the plot. Helen Mirren is as reliable as ever playing her part to genuine credibility and is admirably consistent, for which she is ultimately rewarded, while poor Tom Skerritt gets stuck in the mess of political KGB and CIA intrigue. The story is interesting as an important documentary of the age, paying a vital tribute to Gorbachev - the audience will be rewarded by his presence towards the grand finale of the end. As a whole, the story is ingenious in its thorough insight in the dawning hope of the age of Gorbachev, and also the inside discussions of the CIA are highly enlightening, while the American president is never even mentioned. It's a complex thriller but very convincing in its contrivance of a probable tragedy as the outcome of an assumed assassination plot, and the acting is superb throughout.
