I thought the premise in this story about finding three bodies whose identities were destroyed would make a very good detective tale. Recreating the heads was a good start. But then Brian Dennehy turned up - Why? 'cos his brother was dead ... um how'd he know that he was dead? - the bodies had not been identified. Lost in translation perhaps?
shareThe book explains that side of things better, and though the movie does follow the book pretty well, it does take out a lot of info.
In the book IIRC (years since I last read it) the brother of the character played by Brian Dennehy is a American Jeasus-freak who wants to get people out of the Soviet Union..... I am sure he did this a couple of times, so thought he could get away with it every time, but this time he had been missing for far to long, so his brother assumed that the KGB had caught him and most likely killed him.
The movie seems to remove large chunks of book out and go nowhere near as deep into the character development.
re: "In the book IIRC (years since I last read it) the brother of the character played by Brian Dennehy is a American Jeasus-freak who wants to get people out of the Soviet Union..... I am sure he did this a couple of times, so thought he could get away with it every time, but this time he had been missing for far to long, so his brother assumed that the KGB had caught him and most likely killed him."
Actually, those things ARE mentioned in the film.