Romanovin kivet

Here's a film, that tries to be everything that Hollywood action films usually are: It tries to have witty dialog, explosive action, clever heroes, nasty baddies and a worth while treasure to hunt. Sadly it misses the mark by miles.

Firstly the writing is extremely bad. Every piece of dialog uttered out sounds so forced, that it's hard to believe, that they were even written by someone who actually knew how to write. This leads in many involuntarily funny situations. And it actually makes all characters look silly.

Then there's the actors, who actually these days are pretty good, who look like they don't have the slightest idea what they are doing. That might be for the fact, that there aren't so many action flicks done in Finland, so the genre is familiar to them only from the movies. And then there's a problem with actors cast in wrong roles, or the fact, that they are entirely in the wrong movie, like Kari Hietalahti, who just fits better in comedy shows than in any other roles. (Pretty much the cast from this flick starred in popular Finnish comedy series Riiviöt right after this film. The series also shared the director with this film.)

In all this film would be pretty decent, if it were done by group of film buffs with no money and with no intention to really to try to make money with it. But this indeed was in theatrical release in Finland, but I can't say was it laughed out from the theaters or not.