The Wizard of the Kremlin: Movie Review

Cast: Paul Dano, Jude Law, Alicia Vikander, Jeffrey Wright, Tom Sturridge
Director: Olivier Assayas

There's a definite low-level energy to director Olivier Assayas' latest, a kind of biopic of the rise of Putin in post-collapse Russia.

From its soft-spoken lead in Paul Dano to its continual overuse of voiceover to tell the story, this dramatic reconstruction of the life and times of an oligarch helper, Vadim Baranov (Dano, playing a version of the real-life Vladislav Surkov) has a subtle tone - but one that leaves you questioning whether the film is pro-Putin.

In the early 1990s, the USSR has fallen and as the country rebuilds itself, Baranov sees an opportunity for himself to rise from his theatre artist background to a reality TV producer who happens to catch the eye of Russia's soon-to-be-dictator Vladimir Putin (Law, in a subtle and understated turn.)

Emerging as a spin doctor from the dust, Baranov begins to shape foreign policy as well as a new Russia. But at the heart of his life remains Ksenia (Vikander, widely underused) a free-spirited influence on his life that never quite spurs him into action.

When Baranov's approached by a contact from abroad (Wright, largely absent in the film except for narrative leaps), he begins to reveal the reality of what's transpired over decades, putting himself squarely in danger.

For a would-be thriller that essentially takes on the Cold War, The Wizard of the Kremlin is a surprisingly muted affair that never quite settles for anything more than solipsistic drama. Dano is perfectly fine in a performance that zigzags between real-life video moments to scenes that simply show men talking.

And while Law's is less than half of the film, Assayas and the script make him seem like a reasonable character until the back third of the film sees his cruelty and ambition collide in particularly nasty ways.

The film overall lacks a dynamism throughout and while it is a document of times from behind the Iron Curtain, it does have the kind of panache that could shape a riveting piece of history.

Instead, this Wizard of the Kremlin sadly has little of the magic that you'd expect from such an incendiary and cautious tale.