Two Words, One Answer.
Rider Strong
 Russian Debutante's Handbook - on Playaway $51.99 Playaway is the easiest way to listen to a book on the go. An all-in-one format, the player and content are combined in one 2 ounce unit and it comes with everything you need to start listening immediately. No separate player needed, no CDs, no downloads just press play! The Russian Debutante's Handbook takes us from New York City's Lower East Side to the hip frontier wilderness of Prava -- the Eastern European Paris of the '90s -- whose grand and glorious beauty is marred only by the shadow of the looming statue of Stalin's foot. There, with the encouragement of the Groundhog, a murderous (but fun-loving) Russian Mafioso, Vladimir infiltrates the American ex-pat community with the hope of defrauding his young middle-class compatriots by launching a pyramid scheme that's as stupid as it is brilliant. Things go swimmingly at first, but nothing is quite as it seems in Prava, and Vladimir learns that in order to reinvent himself, he must first discover who he really is.  The Prince $14.95 Classic, Renaissance-era guide to acquiring and maintaining political power. Today, nearly 500 years after it was written, this calculating prescription for autocratic rule continues to be much read and studied.  The Pact $19.98 An interesting premise and some sincere, well-thought out performances are lost in a muddled and sometimes pedestrian script. THE PACT opens with young Gregg Sherman witnessing the murder of his parents by a pair of hitmen. He manages to escape, and agrees to testify in order to bring their mob boss down. To do this, he is placed in the witness protection program and shipped off to an elite boarding school in Montreal. Given a new look, a new identity and a whole new set of concerns, Gregg finds himself lost until he strikes up a friendship with streetwise Lenny Dalton. Dalton teaches him self defense and Gregg (now Steve Spencer) teaches Dalton how to swim. Little does Spencer realize...but no real plot revelations to spoil it for those who haven't seen yet. Rider Strong as Lenny and Adam Frost as Sherman/Spencer offer good performances, contrasting nicely and both turning out likeable. Lisa Zane is sincere and serious as the headmistress; John Heard is appropriately governmental as the WPP head honcho. The problem is that the script offers little suspense, and has the characters, especially Lenny, doing dumb things, and missing key clues, like Tampa being on the Atlantic side of Florida. This should have been a big point for Lenny. There is also no explanation as to why Jeffrey Teal gets upset when the witness protection program is mentioned. By the time the movie reaches its painfully obvious conclusion, the steam has run out for the viewer, and although the ending satisfies to a point, it's flat and predictable. THE PACT could have been a better movie if the script had just been a little more compact and less predictable. |
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