Siberia is a 2018 crime thriller about an American diamond trader whose Russian partner goes missing, forcing him to journey to Siberia in search of him, beginning a love affair instead.
It’s funny how a certain expectation sets in with an actor directly after they’ve scored a box office hit. More so in modern times with elder-ish actors haven taken up arms in the name of whatever, leaving a swath of blood and baddassery in their wake. Such is the case with Keanu Reeves, who, after his phenomenally successful John Wick films, seems die-cut for such things in just about any role he is cast now. However, despite appearances, director Matthew Ross has other ideas for his star, dressing him up for the fight, but abandoning any need for it, this more a caustic love story in the snow than anything Wick fans might be hoping for.
Landing in St. Petersburg, American diamond trader Lucas Hill (Reeves) is immediately at a loss when his partner Pyotr (Boris Gulyarin) doesn’t show, he in possession of a stash of blue diamonds Hill is meant to sell to testy Russian gangster Boris (Pasha D. Lychnikoff), whose not entirely onboard with the American’s story. Hill is able to delay the sale for two days, and sets out to Siberia to find Pyotr, ending up in a local diner where he meets Katya (Ana Ularu), a young, attractive woman who is drawn to the American’s dark aura, inviting him into a sexual tryst (he’s got a wife played by Molly Ringwald back in the states), all the while as the intrigue and danger mounts, leading to a volatile end.
The opening moments of Siberia, indeed much of the film entire, sort of has this Sidney Lumet vibe with a dash of late Stanley Kubrick, a ticking time bomb attitude that sets an impressive tone. However, the thickening plot at the start quickly switches tracks once Hill meets Katya, a cross-cultural love affair brewing that drains the suspense out of the slow burn mystery set up from the start. Mostly, it’s two dressed people fumbling about without much passion.
That’s not all bad of course, the relationship a potentially good story itself, with Ularu well cast and great fun to watch, but the film lingers on this for so long, it feels like there are two films here with both left untapped. There’s some interesting things happening with Reeves of note, who looks like he’s stepped right off the Wick set, ready to bring the beat down, but in an early scene, we see he’s really no fighter, and that helps a bit in redefining what we should expect. Yet, all the landmarks are in place to see that Hill’s got a menace within him that will be sure to bring the pain if needed.
The problem really is that Reeves just can’t make the tender side work as well as it should, perhaps the film itself not sure how best to handle the affair, the weight of his infidelity not all that burdensome with Ringwald barely a cameo. The best parts, naturally, are the bits between the awkward romance, with Boris a big cartoonish thug that at least stirs some momentum in the few scenes he gets. It’s really sort of astonishing how dull much of the film becomes, its pulsing energy at its beginning losing nearly all its charge early on, the faux intrigue never enough to keep it all that absorbing. Lines like, “You watch too many spy movies,” countered with “You watch too few,” are just wasted in a film that doesn’t recognize its own irony or the potential that lies within. A moody movie with no mood, this is an unfortunate misfire.