Movie Review: Siberia Leaves You Stone Cold

Siberia

Rating:*(1 star)

This is from before Sanju. Ranbir Kapoor’s choice of films sucked. He chose his roles worse than any actor.

Except for Keanu Reeves. Destructive, suicidal role-selections have brought this superstar’s Matrix-manoeuvred marvelous movie career to a grinding halt. Siberia is really the end of the road for the doomed Mr. Reeves…or is it? With him, we never know what depths of destruction he may plumb next.

Siberia A Wrong Movie Choice By Keanu Reeves?

Siberia is not just incomprehensible, incoherent pretentious and perverse. It is worse. It’s a dreadful dull dishwater-level filmmaking posturing as something deep dark and cryptic. Reeves looking thoroughly disoriented travels down to Siberia for a tryst with some diamond merchants. Once in Siberia, there is little room for any warm contemplation of the protagonist’s predicament as he plunges into a carnal relationship with a café owner Katya (Ana Ularu).

I confess I had never watched Ms. Ularu’s work before. After seeing her in Siberia I don’t think I missed out on much. In all fairness, her unimpressive chemistry with Mr. Reeves has a lot to do with the conversations that script forces her to have with the TDB (Tall Dark Bewildered) stranger. Also the fact that she is at least 20 years her co-star’s junior makes her look like a high school girl taking tuition from her teacher for better grades.

“What would you say I said I wanted to sleep with you?” Ms. Ularu inquires conversationally.

“You mean, now?” stammers Mr. Reeves.

He gets an affirmative. He then tells her he can’t oblige right away because he needs to go and look for his brother’s friend.

Do we really care whether Mr. Reeves finds the man he is looking for? Or whether the pair have sex eventually?

For the record, they do. They’ve wild sex, a la carte. The men include Mr. Reeves pleasuring Ms. Ularu with his mouth in unmentionable places.

Speaking of unlikely locations. Siberia’s snow-capped desolation seems perfect for its lackluster script brimming over with corny lines and weird plot points where we see Mr. Reeves locking horns with various high-end ruffians. By the time the narration puts his head into resolving the mess, we are long gone, looking for ways to kill the ennui that creeps and clamps its clammy claws around our heart.

Never again, Mr. Reeves. I am not sitting through any of your films until you realize being different is different from being indifferent.

And that’s a better line than anything I heard in Siberia. But never visiting that part of the world.