In Operation Odessa, the Wild West meets the (newly) wild East!
A Russian gangster, a Cuban entrepreneur and a man who could sell ice in Alaska in the middle of winter walk into a bar. And what do they walk out with?
A plan to buy a submarine, of course, bound for the waiting arms of the Cali Cartel .
As improbable as it sounds, it is all too true. This documentary about what these men did over a quarter of a century ago may well command the attention of even the most die-hard action film fan by showing how East and West do in fact meet— at least when- and wherever the universal language of greed is spoken.
The period covered by Operation Odessa – the 1990´s – certainly has a head start in the action department, as was the preceding decade— a decade in which (luckily for film and television buffs) Miami-as-Promised-Land of crooked cops and shoot-em-ups in broad daylight was so artfully depicted by director Michael Mann (Miami Vice) and Brian de Palma (Scarface).
It was a time for (almost) overnight billionaires, with cocaine cowboys peppering Miami and environs with their palatial night spots and multi-acre cash-bought mansions. It was also a time when KGB bigwigs from the just-cancelled 70 year-long run of the U.S.S.R. were busy selling just about the entire inventory of their just-failed socioeconomic experiment to the highest bidder; state of the art dual-rotor helicopters, the world´s biggest cargo plane (and yes, you heard right) a nuclear submarine included in the mix.
The theme of the film, of course, is the collaboration between some truly shadowy Westerners and the former scions of Marx and Engels. In this paean to the power of greed and its ability to nullify ideological differences, older-new-money and brand-new-money join forces in a quest to become as filthy rich as quickly as possible. The compelling story line narrated by the real-life characters make you want to stick around for the ending, if only to see where the scheming and apparently unquenchable greed of the principle actors will lead them. For yes, these men are all crooks. But insofar as they strive to put together deals that are highly profitable and extremely creative,they are also entrepreneurs in the purest sense of the word; and in a world gone mad with the worship of entrepreneurial chutzpah their stories may very well be as inspiring as they are scary
This tour de force is as gripping, for the most part, as many of its purely dramatic counterparts. and that”s why Weeklyflickpicks.com gives it its highest rating…⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐