Delayed Reaction: The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming

Premise: A Russian submarine gets stuck off the coast of a small New England community.

 

I enjoy going into movies as blind as I did for this one. I didn't even know if it was a comedy or a drama when I started it. I didn't know release year, plot, cast, or awards attention. I knew there were probably Russians involved. That's it. It's hard to come by a movie like that for me; especially one that comes from my own movie watchlist. And this was a pleasant surprise.

 

The best way I can describe TRACTRAC (I'm not typing the full name) is it's like someone watched Dr. Strangelove then said, "I'd rather make something broader". It's strange to think of this as an Oscar movie, but I'm not against it. That's a really cool Lead Actor nomination for Alan Arkin, in his screen debut. I also didn't realize this was a Carl Reiner movie. It's just a coincidence that I watched this only a week after he died. It was really nice to see a young Carl Reiner rather than the aged one I know from palling around with Mel Brooks or the Ocean's movies.

 

It was shocking to see a movie from 1966 that was so generous to the Russian characters. I was -21 years-old when the movie came out, so I don't have a proper context of the era. I'm used to thinking of that as the height of the Cold War; only a few years removed from the Cuban missile crisis. Nearly 20 years later they are still making movies like Rocky IV with comically evil Russians. However, this movie has the Russians as sympathetic and likable. It's not even like they are oafs. I really didn't see that coming. I wonder if it was really that shocking at the time.

 

This isn't a super inventive movie. It does hit the same joke repeatedly about the small-town people reacting to the Russians. In a lot of ways, this feels like the movie Spielberg was trying to make when he made 1941. It stops just short of going too zany, which leaves room for the genuinely tense moments. Even though I knew nothing bad was going to happen, the standoff between the Russians and the townspeople at the end got me. I guess I could've laughed a little more at the movie as a whole. That's the only thing holding it back from me loving it. And it is a little on the long song. I have very few complaints though.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend