Canadian reporter infiltrates Moscow to cover criminal trial of anti-Soviet dissident accused of espionage, getting involved in espionage herself after a prominent female doctor asks her to take Soviet medical reports to the West. This Canadian production from director Paul Almond (star Geneviève Bujold's former husband and collaborator) and screenwriter Marc Rosen is relatively poor, though it is helped somewhat by a solid cast. Bujold gives the clumsily-written script all she's got: curious and cynical, she seems to come with a built-in B. S. detector. Michael York (with a shaky Russian accent) is the romantic Comrade who may or may not be on her side, and Colleen Dewhurst is the enigmatic doctor who works at "the Institute" (Dewhurst publicly dismissed the film, saying it was "like summer stock in Podunk"). Bujold seems to be doing a reprise of her feisty doctor battling mysterious adversaries in "Coma"; that's all well and good, but the budget and the brains of a tightly-wound mystery story are sadly missing this time. *1/2 from ****
Review of Final Assignment
