I haven't read the book Icon, but I understand it's quite different from the film. One of the reasons may be because it was a TV movie and didn't have a budget for the grand finale that was described in one of the reviews; another reason may be because most TV movies are not written to the same level as feature films. Given some feature films I've seen, that's pretty scary, but there we are.Icon is the story of a retired US Operative, Jason Monk (Patrick Swayze) who comes out of retirement to return to Russia and bring to justice Komarov (Patrick Bergin), an enemy responsible for the death of Monk's fellow operatives years earlier.Komarov is now running for President in the new Russia. Working with a member of the Russian police force (Annika Peterson), he discovers Komarov's true agenda, which includes wiping out ethnic groups using biological warfare.Monk has an additional reason for returning to Russia - he has a daughter there and has learned that his wife died of cancer. He hasn't seen his daughter since she was a little girl; she's now 17.This was a solid, if not overwhelmingly thrilling, miniseries that held my interest. And the cast was solid: Barry Morse, who was something like 88 when he did this miniseries; Ben Cross, Jeff Fahey whom I always think of as my elevator buddy; and Michael York.Now, why do I call Jeff Fahey my elevator buddy? About 30 years ago, when he was on One Life to Live, we were on an elevator together. Around 2000, I went to an opening of some kind, and as I walked onto the elevator to leave, Jeff Fahey entered.Anyway, this was pretty good. Sad to see Patrick Swayze, gone too soon.

the movie is complete disaster. i don't know who write scripts for movies like this one, but i would definitely love to meet one of them and talk to him a little bit. perhaps script writers really don't know sh*t about situation in foreign countries in present or recent past? or they just don't give a damn and write everything that they think it's interesting.a great and everlasting formula with mad dictator + 1 lonely hero (an American of course) might seem like a good idea, but come on?! we had such a tyrant in serbia (milosevic) who did a lot of bad things to it's people, but i simply can't imagine him yelling "shoot them, shoot them" with such a barbaric passion, like in medieval times. maybe they wanted to show how evil he was, but it was a stupid idea. much better impression would be if he just did it in cold blood, like the real monsters do.the list of nonsense is too long, but the funniest thing is: no matter how many national TV stations there are in Russia, Russian president watch American SNN (CNN) news?? OMFG!give me a break!burn this piece of rubish please!AWFUL!

I have not seen and heard the original version.I am no Russian, but I am learning right now.I also have no preferences for Russia, Bulgaia, the US etc.But what I have to mention is:In the German synchronisation in the whole film all Russians speak with Russian accent. Americans talk "Hochdeutsch" (without accent)! I have never heard such a stupidity! Besides, this is boring.I hope the original is better.The rest is a simple thriller, not really good ideas. Like a cheap version of a James Bond film.

Such a BS movie. It's just some stupid anti-Russian propaganda, with a completely BS plot, not in any way related to the book. It looks like the production team got more money from the people who ordered the movie, than they will ever be able to get from selling the movie. The plot of the movie includes references to some of the real recent events in Russian and other parts of Eastern Europe, but puts them in such way that has nothing to do with reality. It looks like the movie is a brainwashing instrument, which helps to portray Russia as a place populated by evil people that always dream about killing someone. An of course there are hundreds of stupid mistakes like using the map of USSR instead of Russia when running news reports, showing a crowd with Ukrainian flags and commenting that it's Russian elections, etc. Also there are many bizarre episodes (i.e. a character runs though the Red Square in Moscow and in a second he is in downtown Sophia, Bulgaria).