Siberia (2018)

Elevator Pitch: Lucas Hill is a diamond dealer who is doing a deal to supply blue diamonds from a doubtful source to a St Petersburg gang boss. But the man supplying his has gone missing, requiring him to visit a small Siberian town, Mirny. In Mirny Lucas visits a down at heel café run by Katya, a young Russian who has worked in the west and so is an English speaker. He intervenes when a customer is about to expose himself, and is beaten up when he leaves the café. Katya takes him to her home and they soon become lovers.  The diamonds never surface, but fakes are forced on him by the FSB, which he sells to Boris the mafia boss. He returns to Siberia with Katya where he is to have a final confrontation with the mob.

Content: Well, there is a lot of sex and a bit of female nudity, and a lot of drinking of vodka. At one point when Katya is with Lucas in St Petersburg she is more or less forced to engage in oral sex with Boris, while a young woman on Boris’s payroll does the same for Lucas, these acts will apparently make them brothers. We spend a lot of time with Lucas in Siberia which is bleak and snowy. He goes bear hunting with Katya’s brothers. All the interiors of the buildings are grungy in Siberia, and very opulent in an old fashioned way in St Petersburg. 

A View: A nomination for this movie was the age difference between Lucas and Katya by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, and honestly although much of the film is taken up with them getting at it, it is difficult to see what might motivate Katya, who is a very good looking young woman, to want to do it with Lucas, who is a dour, monosyllabic, middle-aged American. Otherwise the plot is sufficiently complex for one to discard it and hope that what remains will be fun. It isn’t, so this film is not a watch even for nothing.

Additional Info: Even Nicholas Cage turned down the opportunity to pay Lucas Hill.