Icon
A former US Operative, who lived in Russia in his earlier years and had been married there with a child, comes out of retirement to face down a former enemy, now running as a candidate for President in modern Russia. Working with a Russian policewoman, they work to uncover a plot to use biological weapons against certain factions of the Russian people to commit genocide. The virus would also be released in other populations, but would be treated making the candidate a hero. A side plot has the agent being reunited with his long lost daughter.
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- Cast:
- Patrick Swayze , Patrick Bergin , Michael York , Annika Peterson , Ben Cross , Jeff Fahey , Joss Ackland
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Reviews
Highly Overrated But Still Good
Absolutely Brilliant!
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
FREDDY FORSYTH has come up with a storyline which will suit the mood of the West's suspicions about Putin's Russia. Forsyth installs a nasty guy as the Ruski president who wants to return the country - not so much to Stalin's Communism but more to Hitlerian Fascism. In fact, his Political Manifesto could have come straight out of Mein Kampf rather than Marx. And, the loon has the latest weapons of biological destruction to achieve the ethnic cleansing pogrom of the Russian Federation. American mercenaries connive with the Russian Prez to realise his fanatical, genocidal dream, but then enter Dirty Dancing's Pat Swayze...and,yep,things get really down and dirty. He's a former US operative-turned-drifter,Jason Monk, who is enlisted by the British Government to see what the Russians are up to. As a corny sidebar, Swayze's character who is no Monk (!)has sired a Russian beauty Elena (played by the gorgeous Marta Kondova) on his previous missions to the former Commie state. Hardman Swayze does a passable job in setting out to defeat the evil Russians. But young unknown actress Marta Kondova steals the flick as his nubile, 18-year-old Russian daughter Elena who helps dad root out the terror threatening her beloved Mother Russia.
I accidentally stumbled across this flick while i was renting a couple of movies. At first i decided to pass it but after seeing swayze's name on the cover i thought to myself that it would be fun to see him in an action movie again. Having the warm memory of roadhouse in the back of my mind i snatched it. Well to be honest it wasn't that bad of a b-movie (mini series?) and it also wasn't that good. It basically is about a chemical terrorist hit in Russia and Swayze is brought from retirement to solve it. It at least seemed they filmed the movie in Russia which they probably did since i live next door to the country and I'd say it was pretty authentic. Nicely done there. The cast did a fine job considering what they were given to work with. Action scenes with swayze were as good as the movie got. Nice to see that he's still in good shape and able to nicely outperform most of the old-timers in Hollywood. The man's in his mid-fifties. If you like Patrick Swayze go rent this. If not, then i recommend not to bother just for the movie.
Its gonna be hard to make this fill 10 lines.... But ill give it a try (just to prevent others from making the same mistake as i did - to watch this (awful and boring) movie.I like Patrick swayze - he did a excellent performance in films like Ghost - Dirty Dancing - Point Break - North & South (TV series), but in this movie..... ARGH....This movie is so booooooring, the acting is awful - the script sucks - well.. i cant even find ONE good thing, nothing, absolutely NOTHING. I was watching it with 2 other friends and we all agreed that this was one of the most boring films we had ever seen, and the fact that it lasts for more then 3 hours (which we didn't know) - when part 1 was over and it said "to be continued", we almost cried "nooooooooooooo, do we have to watch 90 minutes more of this movie!!!!".Its painful to see this movie: At no time do you get the impression that the actors are Russians, the action scenes are extremely bad. The ONLY good scene is when the truck explodes in the beginning of the movie! The rest is CRAP! GO clean your toilet, instead of watching this movie (and don't come running, crying if you do see this movie - you were pre warned!) Personally i would recommend Patrick Swayze to call his agent and have them recall this movie - its that bad.
I recently rented this promising mini series, I didn't even know they had adapted it for television. I was really looking forward to it since the book Icon is one of the best spy thrillers I have ever read. What a disappointment it was. The plot only loosely resembles the one in the book, the characters are completely miscast and there's some appalling acting. A shame really. The story behind Icon is perfect for the silver screen, but I think television budgets just aren't big enough for a decent adaptation of this spectacular book.Forsyth deserves much, much better than this. Avoid and stick to the book, which is a must-read.