Archangel (2005)

Originally Reviewed
Monday January 29, 2007

Before he was James Bond 007 Daniel Craig was Fluke Kelso (whew! what a step up!) history professor and connoisseur of everything on the life of the murderous and evil Russian dictator Josef Stalin. During a conference in Russian, speaking on the life of Stalin, Dr. Kelso finds himself in the middle of what could possibly be a ground breaking and wealthy discovery that could completely alter Russian history and shed new light on its most notorious ruler.

About to return home to New York, Dr. Kelso is approached by an elderly man claiming to have been one of the two people at the side of Stalin when he died. At the time he was a young soldier, but his entire life he had been keeping a secret that he no longer wanted to bear. He spoke to Dr. Kelso of a diary that Stalin had kept locked away in his quarters, and that at the time of his death one of Stalin's Generals took this journal and ordered him to bury it, obviously it was something of great importance, if Stalin kept it under lock and key and after his death not even his right hand man wanted it to be discovered.

Fascinated Dr. Kelso expresses his excitement to the old man and informs him that a find such as this magnitude could be worth upwards of one million dollars. At the mention of money the old man quickly disappears leaving Dr. Kelso with the possibility of an incredibly large discovery but no proof or way of contacting the old man again. Dr. Kelso begins to do whatever he can to try and piece together this puzzle in an attempt to collaborate the old man's story, when he finds out there is truth behind it he hits another dead end in learning the old man has been murdered. Now he's positive that the story is true, and finds himself in the middle of something quite dangerous. As the mystery continues Dr. Kelso begins to discover that this mystery is more than simply a journal, and his involvement in bringing it to light is no luck of the draw, but a carefully devised plan to bring the rule of Stalin back into power!

I accidentally stumbled across Archangel in some recent rental browsing, saw Daniel Craig on the cover, read the description of the film and thought I would give it a shot.  Archangel was a made for TV British film put out by the BBC. I'm not a big fan of BBC films, which usually end up being quite long and boring but I was pleasantly surprised that it held my attention.  Being a made for TV film it's certainly low budget, but it accomplishes it's task of being a decent thriller. Craig shows similar demeanor in this film as he did in Casino Royale, and half the time I expected him to say some suave one liners; while that never happened he did a good job of carrying the story and making it quite interesting. 

Overall, Archangel is a descent thriller, not worth a run out and rental right away but if you're ever bored and have nothing to watch Archangel certainly isn't a waste of time. The film is a little long, but never drags much, it's got quite a few interesting twists and turns and the climax of the film where Dr. Kelso discovers what's really going on is pretty interesting. My only complaint is the film's ending is rather abrupt, after such a long time building up this mystery and bringing it to light it's over fairly quickly.  It would have been interesting to see what would have occurred prior to the conclusion. 

7/10

Archangel Full Movie