The Experts

Travis and Wendell are two young New Yorkers recruited by people they believe want them to run a nightclub in a small Nebraska town called Indian Springs. They are flown out without realising the town is not in the United States at all, but a training facility inside the Soviet Union built to look like an American community so that KGB operatives can learn to pass as ordinary citizens. The two men take the place for a sleepy backwater and their hosts for naive locals, while the trainees are just as puzzled by them, and the deception holds only as long as neither side understands what the other is.

The film was directed by Dave Thomas, whose three features as director are Strange Brew (1983), this one, and White Coats (2004). Nick Thiel, Eric Alter and Steven Greene wrote the screenplay, James Keach produced and appears as Yuri, and the cast includes John Travolta as Travis, Arye Gross as Wendell, Kelly Preston as Bonnie, Deborah Foreman as Jill and Jan Rubeš as Illyich, among 24 credited performers. Paramount backed it with a budget of 13 million USD. On IMDb it holds 5/10 from 3,000 votes and on TMDB 4.6/10 from 51 votes, a narrow spread that points to a consistent audience response rather than a sharply divided one.