Barley Scott Blair, a Lisbon-based editor of Russian literature who unexpectedly begins working for British intelligence, is commissioned to investigate the purposes of Dante, a dissident scientist trapped in the decaying Soviet Union that is crumbling under the new open-minded policies.

Sean Connery
as Bartholomew 'Barley' Scott Blair

Michelle Pfeiffer
as Katya Orlova

Roy Scheider
as Russell

James Fox
as Ned

John Mahoney
as Brady

Michael Kitchen
as Clive

J. T. Walsh
as Colonel Quinn

Ken Russell
as Walter

David Threlfall
as Wicklow

Klaus Maria Brandauer
as Dante
Wuchak
_**Artistic production with Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer, but uninteresting spy story**_ A few years before the fall of the Soviet Union, a boozy English publisher named Barley (Sean Connery) is sent a mysterious manuscript via a beautiful Russian editor named Katya (Michelle Pfeiffer), but...
CinemaSerf
Sean Connery at least looks like he's having some fun in this otherwise rather dry adaptation of the John Le Carré tale of Cold War espionage. He's "Barley", a publisher who is recruited by MI5 to investigate a secret document sent from the USSR purporting to itemise their nuclear arsenal. Needless ...