A Clumsy and Poorly Conceived Spy Thriller: A Review of “Sleeper Agents”
This is a review of “Sleeper Agents,” a Russian patriotic series about exposing a spy network aiming to undermine Russian stability from within. However, the show is poorly conceived and clumsily executed.
The year is 2013. Russian authorities are in the final stages of negotiating a multi-billion dollar long-term gas contract with China. This alliance between two powerful nations worries the CIA, prompting the American intelligence agency to launch a plan to destabilize Russia, mirroring the coups that have already taken place in North Africa and the Middle East. To carry out orders from Langley, “sleeper” agents in Moscow are “reactivated.” These are traitors at various levels of power with access to weapons and the media. The Americans have devised a cunning, multi-layered scheme to discredit Russian intelligence, accuse the government of corruption, launch a massive information attack, bring people to the streets, and orchestrate a “Maidan” scenario. But the Lubyanka has experienced specialists ready for any eventuality. Colonel Rodionov of the FSB heads a special group to counter the “export of orange revolutions.”
Sergei Minaev, the screenwriter, makes a cameo appearance as a top manager of a Russian energy company. In the first episode, bandits attack the Russian embassy in Libya for his case.
Rarely does a domestic television project generate as much public resonance as Channel One’s new project, “Sleeper Agents,” a joint effort by the Russian Ministry of Culture, producer Fedor Bondarchuk, screenwriter Sergei Minaev, and director Yuri Bykov. The latter has borne the brunt of the criticism. Viewers who considered the television drama a politically motivated piece attacked Bykov, who previously directed socially critical films like “The Major” and “The Fool,” accusing him of betraying liberal ideals. Bykov, in turn, showed weakness and apologized for his actions. As a result, the discussion of the artistic merits of the eight-part thriller turned into a witch hunt against the director, and the arguments shifted to areas far removed from creativity.
Channel One previously collaborated with director Yuri Bykov on the series “Method” in 2015, which starred Paulina Andreeva, who also appeared in “Sleeper Agents.”
Meanwhile, “Sleeper Agents” deserves to be discussed from genre, technical, semantic, and creative perspectives. After all, the series consists of more than just simplistic slogans and patriotic clichés. It features a large cast, a decent budget, and an impressive foundation. Therefore, it is worth taking a step back from the virtual barricades and looking at “Sleeper Agents” with the unbiased eyes of a viewer well-versed in several seasons of “The Americans,” “Homeland,” and other high-quality political thrillers.
The Script’s Shortcomings
However, this is where the screenwriter immediately fails. Sergei Minaev, whose name is primarily associated with the “Soulless” duology, is not the strongest writer. He is skilled at “backthinking,” managing to ride a declining wave and pass himself off as the author who started it. This was the case with “A Story About a Non-Real Person,” and “Sleeper Agents” works in the same way. The series tells the story of events from four years ago from today’s perspective, which differs significantly from the realities of 2013. “Sleeper Agents” leans heavily on this, becoming hysterical where everything is calm even today, exaggerating in areas that no one even thought about back then, and projecting today onto yesterday’s shadows.
Lack of Tension and Believable Characters
However, the awkward setting of 2013 would have been accepted calmly if the creators had managed to make a truly solid thriller. Alas, “Sleeper Agents” lacks tension. Of course, the characters are somehow tense, so much so that they drink a glass of whiskey every three to five minutes of screen time, but this does not add dynamism. Moreover, the plot moves exclusively through external “kicks.” The “defenders of the fatherland” themselves, with sour faces, browse social networks and “clean up the picture,” obtaining car numbers using long-ridiculed methods. What can we say if the “Pinkertons” only find the bomber preparing to detonate a bomb in Moscow thanks to the vigilant owner of a children’s toy store? The series lacks real drive, adrenaline, and energy so desperately that even the chase after the “werewolf in uniform” looks like a teenage ride in daddy’s cars, which God forbid should be scratched.
However, the lack of fuss in the frame could have been forgiven if at least one hero or villain of “Sleeper Agents” was a colorful, charismatic character who grabbed the viewer by the throat. No, the characters in the project are not distinguished by thorough development and serious embodiment. Rather, the frame is filled with templates taken from caricatures, from feuilletons and straightforward parodies. The “stupid” Americans in “Sleeper Agents” are constantly eating for some reason, journalists-human rights activists do not leave the bar and are inspired exclusively by money, brave “chekists” defend the Motherland 24 hours a day, despite the creaking cardans of old cars and constant pressure from the authorities, high offices are decorated with portraits of Dzerzhinsky and Andropov - all this looks like cranberries, which are usually collected in Hollywood, but not a patriotic project, the pride of the country’s main channel.
Unconvincing Conflicts
Even the internal conflicts between the characters in “Sleeper Agents” do not stand up to any criticism. We will not analyze the claims of “traitors” and the “fifth column” against their country, but we will try to look without tears at the relationship within the triangle Andrei - Kira - Ivan. After all, this is blatant hack work, the characters do not fit together at all, they seem to have come from different films or from jokes about “a Russian, a German and a Frenchman met somehow.” A decade and a half of marriage, but the spouses seem to see each other for the first time. Former friends have not a single topic for conversation except politics. Separated lovers pick at old “sores” to make sure of the mistakes of their youth. It is sad to watch this, the authors, the actors, and the viewers suffer.
One can find justification for everything that appears on television screens today: from talk shows analyzing teenage sex to programs popularizing the theory of a flat earth - ratings and money have long replaced meaning and a sense of taste. In this paradigm, “Sleeper Agents” is not the worst product. In the series, strong men from the organs “bend” “liberals” and threaten “Kuzka’s mother” to “pindos,” not forgetting, if necessary, to plant drugs on suspects and break into apartments and offices with fighters from special forces units in full gear and with weapons. This correlates well with the key words of Igor Petrenko’s character, exhausted by standing guard over stability: “We took the country for ourselves and will defend it.” By any means, even such wretched and far from real creativity. Only there is no strength to watch this defense, it remains only to fall asleep until a new signal from Langley.