Silent Partner

Written by Brent Simon
Oct 1st, 2006

If the idea of Tara Reid negotiating a Russian accent seems nipped from the same implausibly derisible files that gave us Elisabeth Shue storing the notes for cold fusion in her bra in The Saint, you’re on the right track for the self-serious but really rather silly, internationally lensed suspense thriller Silent Partner.

Produced by Oscar-winning Crash producer Bob Yari and co-written and directed by James Deck, the film centers on a young CIA analyst, Gordon Patrick (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ Nick Moran, coming off a bit like a young Willem Dafoe), who gets sent to Russia to try turn up some information on the death (suicide or murder?) of the minister of finance, Mikhail Garin (Georgy Martirosian), and his connection to a loan program for an American corporation, Langdon Industries. In the course of his consultation with his ambassadorial liaison (Gregg Henry, breathing some snarkiness into the movie), Patrick encounters a series of investigatory dead-ends before hooking up with Dina Nevskaya (Reid), a steely prostitute who might hold secrets that will illuminate important political corruptions. Yadda, yadda, yadda… life imperilment and other stuff ensues.

As far as its production values, Silent Partner is OK since its setting is actually legit (the movie was shot in Russia, and saw theatrical release there and in parts of Europe over a year and a half ago). But its execution is for the most part sub-par, marred by too-close camerawork in dialogue scenes and a car chase that defies the basic principles of cross-cutting. Moran is somewhat intriguing as a lead, mainly because he so heartily embraces the Everyman thing. Reid, meanwhile, drags out her patented ferret’s glare and perpetually furrowed brow, and if the movie (thankfully) doesn’t fully showcase her misaligned, surgically enhanced fun-bags, she does add a few more vid-caps to her estimable canon of Internet-catalogued screen nudity.

Housed in a regular Amray case, Silent Partner is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital audio track, but — seemingly strangely for such an international release — no optional subtitles. The picture is fairly clean and free from grain, though there were a few rolls in the movie’s latter third. Save a theatrical trailer, there are no supplemental extras.