RUSSIAN ex-spy Alexander “Sasha” Litvinenko was as sassinated by radiation poison slipped into his tea in London in 2006. Filmmaker and friend Andre Nekrasov, who had filmed many hours of interviews with Litvinenko, retraces his steps in “Poisoned by Polonium.”
The documentarian puts himself at considerable personal risk in exposing what Litvinenko and other reformers have said about the FSB, the successor to the KGB. Litvinenko said the spy agency was itself responsible for bombing Moscow and killing 300 civilians in 1999 in order to blame the attack on Chechen rebels and provide cover for a civil war that would in turn be a means for increasing control over Russia. The FSB was almost certainly behind Litvinenko’s demise.
The film, instead of confining itself to who Litvinenko was and how he came to be killed, wanders off into too many tangents and mentions too many cases. The epic corruption of today’s Russia is far too widespread to fit into a single film.
In Russian and English with subtitles. Running time: 105 minutes. Not rated (disturbing images). At the Quad, 34 W. 13th St. – Kyle Smith