Sleepers

To the short list of memorable Cold War comedies—Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three, Norman Jewison's The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!—add this marvelous four-hour 1991 Masterpiece Theatre-aired British miniseries set in the dying days of the old Soviet Union. The premise: back in 1966, a KGB official mounted an unsanctioned project to insert a pair of sleeper agents into the British population before being ousted from power himself. Now, after 25 years, the two (Nigel Havers and Warren Clarke) have become so completely assimilated—one a union organizer with a doting family, the other a womanizing investment consultant—that when the current KGB uncovers the old operation, the duo join forces to avoid being found. As the regular Russian spy network in England is enlisted to help track them down, the British and American intelligence forces are also drawn into the mix, falling over one another in an effort to discover what the Soviets are up to. Sleepers employs an equal-opportunity skewer, taking satirical jabs at all sides, while also providing some poignant moments as the two agents bond on the lam, and friends and family left behind must deal with their sudden disappearance. The obligatory last-act twists and reversals aren't quite as clever as they might have been, but thanks to an excellent cast and fine production values, Sleepers is an exceptional miniseries. DVD extras include cast filmographies. Highly recommended. (F. Swietek)