Your humble reviewer with Oleg, his friend Anna and Mail Order Bride star Robert Capelli, Jr.

First of all, how cool is it to see a movie with the guys who did the soundtrack and appear in it for a few seconds near the end? I mean right there in the theatre with you, in some cases sitting right next to you or nearby. Well, it is totally cool, not to mention the great credit across the middle of the screen at the beginning, “Music by Red Elvises.” That filled my little red heart with pride, to be sure! Aside from those things though, the other fact I’m sure you’ll appreciate hearing is that this movie, “Mail Order Bride,” is very good! It’s funny and well paced and generally a rollicking good time can be had by watching it. The acting is solid and the characters are likeable. Robert Capelli, Jr.in particular, pictured above with Oleg, his friend and myself, is a young actor to watch - he should have a career full of good things because not only is he a very good actor but also a really nice guy who I was lucky enough to meet at the second screening on February 24th. The film was screened in late February as part of the American Film Market film festival, ironically at a theatre on Santa Monica’s 3rd Street Promenade where Our Favorite Band got their start performing in the street. This film festival is an event where films are chosen by powers-that-be for theatrical release, so let’s all keep our fingers crossed that that happens for “Mail Order Bride,” because America is ready for and deserves to see another movie with music by Red Elvises!

The story involves the Italian-American Mafia and the Russian Mafia, but not in any dead-serious way. It’s a very funny comedy, played for laughs to the hilt. Having lived in New York for a few years myself in the past, the scenes where the Italian guys walked through a room full of other Brooklyn Italian guys and each and every one greeted them in turn with, “How YOU dooin’?” like a chorus of “How YOU Dooin’?” over and over again, really cracked me up. I was surprised to have never heard of an area of Brooklyn called Little Odessa, but then I hadn’t met any Russian people yet when I lived there so I was unenlightened back then. The accents, both Brooklyn and Russian, are easy to understand and there are some simple subtitles for the Russian that most of us don’t understand. The subtitles are easy reading and are not overdone, there are just enough to help our understanding, and we’re on our own with easily understandable words like “da” (yes) and “spasibo” (thank you) in places where context alone is sufficient to express the idea. Since I’m not a big fan of subtitles myself but do enjoy the richness of languages other be both refreshing and helpful. The adorable and familiar thing to fans of Red Elvises is that the Russians in the film, not surprisingly, all sound, accent-wise, like the Russians we’ve come to know and love, so that was another nice bit of “listening pleasure.” Visually, it was really nice to see shots of Red Square and quite interesting to see other parts of Moscow as our hero raced through the streets during a high-speed chase.

So…basically the plot is that this beautiful and sexy Russian girl, Nina, has pulled a scam to the tune of $50,000 on a member of the Italian-American Mafia, who naturally wants some sort of retribution. It seems this girl has come over to New York from Russia and married five different guys, pulling the same get-the-money-and-run scam on each and then returning to Russia. It’s decided, in a hilarious phone call full of miscommunication between a Russian Mafia guy and the head of the Italian-American Mafia, that the latter’s lovable screw-up of a nephew, Anthony, played charmingly by Robert Capelli, Jr. will be sent to Russia to find the girl and get the money back. He is sent along with Ivan, the son of the head guy of the Russian Mafia, to protect him in Russia. They get off the plane at the airport in Moscow with Ivan complaining bitterly about the plane running out of vodka, an unheard-of and to him, unforgivable, occurrence. Together, at first, the two of them start to search for Nina, a search that takes them to Russia’s finest bars and strip joints, and the fun takes off from there. There’s romance, double crossing, crime, more double crossing, a little partial nudity and an accidental gunshot in a tender place, complete with a truly funny scene involving “the best doctor in all of Russia” – a white-haired character music is of course, terrific, fits great with the story and includes “Natasha Loves Reggae,” the Russian version of “Rocket Man” and many other Red Elvises songs both new and old. At the end, our guys play at a party and are seen onscreen for way too few seconds, since most of that scene unfortunately ended up being edited out of the film. But we see a flash of Oleg’s extremely red hair and trademark grin, and we see Igor on drums all too briefly and then the scene fades to black and the end credits roll. Overall, the entire film moves along nicely; there are no slow or boring parts, and I found it to be thoroughly enjoyable.

So here’s hoping that “Mail Order Bride” will soon be on its way to a theatre near you! If so, go see it and take your friends, because it’s a good movie to see with other people, Russian or not. Use caution though: it may cause you want to do things afterwards like drink vodka or listen to lots of Red Elvises music or possibly both!