User reviews

I watched this film mainly because it has received such a high IMDb rating (7.8 when I saw it) and some very positive viewer comments. I decided to overlook the dodgy sounding plot (a hard working academic by day, and a racy car driver by night, seeks unspecified "treasure" through the streets of Moscow), and give it a go. How I wish I hadn't...

The main problems with this film are as follows: (1) the plot is ridiculous, utter nonsense. You can actually here the script writers in their meeting with the studios, gulping their mineral water and saying "it's Indiana Jones meets The Fast and the Furious meets The Da Vinci Code!" Well it is in that elements have been blatantly copied... sorry I mean influenced... by those films, but unfortunately none of the humour, excitement or intellectual interest has made it into this particular piece of cinematic history.

(2) The acting. This is probably the best thing about the film, because it is just unintentionally hilarious. Who knew there were so many bad actors working in Hollywood? Their timing and delivery is atrocious. And don't get me started on their "Russian" accents. I had no idea Moscow had such a prominent French-German population. Some money might have been best spent on a dialect coach, or at least helping this poor habitually out-of-work (for a reason, some might say) actors learn that not all Europeans speak in the same accent. And Sherilynn Fenn - have times got so bad for you, my love? You should be ashamed!

(3) The direction. I know very little about film making, but this is so bad that it jars even if you are an average Joe with no idea about movie-making. My favourite bit of direction was the cut to a large dead animal on the wall of a bar, that jerked me out of my clunky-dialogue induced reverie and at least provided me with another piece of unexpected mirth.

(4) The script. Don't ask. Just don't.

So all in all this film MIGHT (and I stress might) appeal to 13 year old boys whose ideal film is Indian Jones meets The Fast and the Furious meets... oh you get the picture. However if said 13 year old boys have a little more intelligence and taste than perhaps that group generally get credit for, then they might also run screaming from this monstrosity.

I'd say to all involved in the making of this film - don't give up your day job. And if this is your day job? God help us all.

After seeing the first scenes of this film I thought I made a new discovery, but my disappointment settled early on. I didn't expect anything special, and so it wasn't. This movie has some of the most unrealistic and wannabe acting I've seen. The characters are false, and the interaction between them is like in a cheap soap opera. The situations created are far from being credible and with a mixture of some superficial special effects, some scenes look really funny, far from their original purpose. Overall it's one of those bad movies in which you have the idea that you know all the way what's gonna happen, and it happens. It has many dead scenes, the plot is too predictable, and the important moments have quite typical solutions. I had the patience to see it until the end, with all of these, and there's no wonder if I won't hear much of it in the future. What surprised me was David Carradine accepting this role, but maybe I haven't seen more of his movies. I gave it a 3/10 for the effort, and I'm not sure it deserves as much.

I gave it a try, stayed with it for about an hour, but I had to give up. It beat me. Although there was an effort, as one other reviewer noted, it appeared the producers figured they had to dumb it down for the masses. Editing was weak. At one point, the police get a call of a disturbance so they decide to go investigate. Next scene, the disturbance begins! No respect for the viewer. And the clichés - Lord, I lost count. From your typical fight at the bar to the comment, "If I tell you, I'll have to kill you." I can see middle school kids being entertained, but certainly not grown adults. Although I must say, the character of "Wolf" had the best Schwarzenegger impersonation I've ever heard!

Don't waste any time off your already precious life on this.

Pathetic at best and I'm being generous is the only way to describe this D grade attempt at a movie.

The attempt at acting and the Russian/American accents were terrible. Story line is so cheesy.

A professor of history who is drag racing treasure hunter searching for the treasure of the Knights Templar.

It is what it is and it is definitely bad.

If hope my comments save's someone from watching this. The best part of this movie was turning it off and it didn't take long.

Absolute rubbish...

Editing, acting & storyline was very poor... production values not too bad, but overall, RUBBISH!

The new would-be Russian big-guy that plays "Wolf" can't act for toffee.

Carradine's role is predictable and the closest thing to a good turn in the whole thing... and that's saying something!

The Russel Crowre look-alike in the lead role was acceptable, bit that's the best I can say...

What a waste of time!

Alexander Nevsky - Actor - Action Hero – star of Treasure Raiders

I can't believe I'm writing about this guy. I do so because in my boredom here I had the terrible misfortune to sit through one of the worst films ever made; Treasure Raiders, and Nevsky is the star. It's like a mixture of National Treasure and The DaVinci Code starring the retarded child of of some action-hero sperm donor. I was glued to the screen it was that bad. The movie also features some skeletal Carradine brother and that woman from Twin Peaks who never really died, more's the pity.

The movie's set in Russia and the supporting cast is shocking. The script is autistic. The camera-work is infantile and even the end credits don't save it. The movie was made in 2007 and had a budget of $10 million. Ten million!

Imagine how much good one could do with that much money! You, like me, will want to lay waste to the collection of idiots responsible for the imbecilic, talentless, celluloid turd that is Treasure Raiders - if you ever have the misfortune to see it that is.

And so to Nevsky, the lead actor. I'm talking about the kind of bad acting we could only aspire to had we been swung by the legs as babies and had our heads repeatedly cracked against door jambs.

Imagine the fattest Seagal with the stupidest Stallone with the most wooden Van Damme and then add a pinch of Arnie's awful accent. Yeah, it's really that bad. David Caruso would look like a Shakespearean actor beside this guy and anyone who makes Caruso look good must be a royal, acting spastic don't you agree? Watching Treasure Raiders I wanted to beat Nevsky to death with his own foot.

Nevsky, like Arnie, has a bodybuilding background. After years spent winning everything in Moscow he then published bestselling fitness books…yadda yadda yadda until eventually…………wait for it……..he ended up in the Lee Strasberg Acting School.

The Lee Strasberg Acting School!!!! The same Lee Strasberg School that trained DeNiro and Pacino and Keitel and Hoffman and Marlon Brando.

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's an interesting fact. Jack Nicholson had to audition five times to get into Strasberg's Acting School. Yup, five times. And that was a very young and hungry Nicholson too. Hoffman auditioned six times….Harvey Keitel eleven times. That school had standards man!

One year, out of 2,000 candidates for places at Strasberg, only two were accepted….Martin Landau and Steve McQueen. Understand? See what I'm saying? And they let Nevsky in! What is the world coming to? Next they'll be telling us Drew Barrymore has talent.

Yikes!

PLOT:

Historian who likes racing meets his racing nemesis and oh ….they share a common interest in treasure hunting! They hunt for treasure. There is a baddie.

END PLOT:

That's Treasure Raiders folks and believe it or not, Nevsky wrote it!

Not with joined up letters I bet.

I can still taste the bile in my throat. You know I think the storyboard was probably finger-painted by a child.

And I get angrier and angrier at crap like this when I see how real artists struggle to make essential viewing like City of God or Das Boot or The Lives of Others; films that simply screamed to be made and must be seen whatever the cost. Movies like these save an industry that is awash with talentless Nevskys.

Movies like Treasure Raiders are proof positive that the mainstream movie industry is drowning in a pool of its own prawn-cocktail urine. Shame on the misfits who have anything to do with this rubbish. History will be much more unkind to them than I could ever be here.

As for Nevsky, he'll no doubt end up kicking the life out of some famous wrestler one of these action-movie days. He will be rich. His career will no doubt span ten years. Our lives will be no better or worse for it but our intelligences will be deeply offended. And the most maddening thing of all is that Nevsky shares his name with one of the most important Russians in history, a medieval warrior, beatified and once voted the greatest Russian ever!

By the way, read this from an actual sperm-bank website… Los Angeles California Cryobank sperm donors will be reimbursed up to $100 per donation and up to $1200 a month by donating 3 times a week. We periodically offer incentives such as movie tickets or gift certificates for extra time and effort expended by participating sperm donors.

What the hell is extra time and effort? Is that like having a slow rather than a fast one? Is that like making two consecutive deposits? Are they paying by the fluid ounce??? I wonder if you have to work a week in hand.

I was going to invest in this clinic but I pulled out at the last minute!

Just as you leave the clinic, do they thank you for coming?

Okay okay...I'm done now...

...or should I say spent?

The worst movie I've ever seen (after Borat). Horrible actors, stupid story. These people have never seen a camera. Maybe they have been "hired" from the street. The plot of the movie is very shallow. They somehow tried to copy from "Largo" and other movies, but did not succeed. They even stole David from "Largo" so that they can get some viewers. Another side of the story is that all characters are really ugly. Even the "beautiful" girlfriend of the main character looks like hit by a truck. And she is also a very bad actress. The movie consists of disconnected scenes. Seems as if it has been shot randomly, with no main idea. Cars, races, history--all at one place. Really bad English coming from people who obviously read the text from behind the camera, because they don't even seem to focus on the subject they are talking about. Hard to believe someone spent time and money to shoot that movie. Shame.

oh boy. what was that ???

give it as a present to your mother in law :). the acting is horrendous. nobody not even one actor could act in this movie. the dialogues.the accent.oh my god...the plot... dear god .. please save me from such movies.i think IMDb should flag such movies and provide a warning with the title.i did not read the reviews.i will never make that mistake again in my life.never ever. not even when i am the last person on this planet and this is the only movie left . please do not watch it guys. its not even waste of time. its not even murdering time.watch it on your own risk:)

If you want to waste your time, this is the one for you. Very bad acting. poor dialog delivery, stupid action scenes (if you have ever watched any Jackie-Chan movie, OK forget Jackie Chan, Steven Seagal! OK forget Seagal, Chuck Norris! OK forget Norris, any other American/Chinese/hongkong action movie, you will wonder what is going on here!), idiotic expressions at times. Only one villain is worth watching who survives at the end! He reminded me of Mickey Rourke(Marv) in Sin City.

I watched this movie because someone had given very good feedback (someone who wants to make money!!) and the actor 'Alexander Nevsky' is considered hero in his country. After reading his profile, I liked him for not depicting Russian as bad guy as he refused few offers to act in blockbuster movies! But he is destroying the Russian reputation by being a bad actor. He is a bodybuilder alright, but it's the acting, which counts, not just the body!! Schwarzenegger or The Rock would not have done so well if they had acted poorly.

I want my money back. Although I watched it for free, It was still not worth my time!

saw this at a screening over the last week, its incredible. I don't want to give anything away, but i'm hoping this film breaks out into LARGE release, as it is worthy of a huge audience. The audeince at the film festival seem to be equally impressed and blown away by this film. The directors and producer of the film stood there for over an hour answering questions, and making comments about the film. ITs not too often that films nowadays are gutsy enough to be made out of the Hollywood mold like this film, yet its BETTER , much much better than your average Hollywood film. I think it will come to the theaters over this summer. This is a perfect summer release, and will do VERY VERY well if let out in wide distribution. Don't miss this, incredible action, great script, top notch acting..!!!!

I love junky action flicks. I don't mind low budget films. If a movie is entertaining and that was it's purpose, it's cool. However, this movie, eh where does one begin? It's like three guys with different ideas got together and decided they could make indiana jones, the fast and the furious, national treasure, james bond, speed racer, the transporter, davinci code and several other movies in one including all of their 'plot ideas' with a 5 year old as the script writer, in Moscow. I know sounds exciting or at least amusing right? Not so much. The whole time you're waiting for characters from all of those movies to burst in and beat everyone up for doing what they are doing. The pacing destroys any chance there may have been at creating a cohesive movie. The acting was terrible even beyond accents. The direction must have been consistently bad or non existent. The characters weren't believable from any stand point and at no point did the movie even get you into the 'story'. Constant gaping holes make you regularly ask the movie to let you in on the joke, the plot 'twist' or whatever it failed to tie in. It's like an in motion story board of round one 'brainstorming', if you can called blatant ... emulation, shall we say,... that. So, don't waste your money or even your time with this one. It's not really even one of those 'so bad it's good/funny' movies. It's just eh? what? You can find better stuff on Youtube or the bin at the dollar store, which is where this belongs.

Hasn't everyone get tired of lame Hollywood films like this? Apparently, Hollywood produced an addition to their verrrrry long list of action films about Americans in Russia.

I guess the producers were brainstorming about what's next in action films and they were thinking, "Yeah. This is the 21st century. Russia is becoming cool, so let's not make a story about a dude who kill impoverished evil Russians. Just make them look cool." And then someone suggested, "Hey! I heard that people's into The Da Vinci Code and stuff, so let's say there are two cool guys, one is a professor and one is a racer, and then they are looking at a treasure that has a code in it." So they went to Russia to find good places to shoot the film, hired a special effects "expert", and to cut costs, they searched for so-so actors with low talent fees.

The result? A cheap, terrible and cliché-ridden "Treasure Raiders." See? This gotta be worse than any of Steven Segal's idiotic films. In fact, this gotta be one of the worst films about Mother Russia. Damn! I can't believe I've finished it!

Oh, cut this fun and funny movie a break, whydontcha.

Here's a movie that revels – no, bathes – in its own ridiculousness to such a degree you really can't escape being charmed by all the fun everyone's having.

So here's the silly story: A college professor who doubles as an illegal street racer and triples as an intrepid archaeologist is in Russia on a teacher exchange program but is really seeking the lost treasure of the Knights Templar. Because yeah.

He befriends a kindly Russian vigilante strongman, woos the vigilante's Angelina Jolie lookalike sister, and runs afoul of drug dealers, a characteristically evil David Carradine, and Russian police who openly and inexplicably worry about "bad press."

Talk about uneven! I lost count of how many movies were going on here. It's a "Fast & Furious" mockbuster, it's a "Da Vinci Code"/"Tomb Raider"/"Indiana Jones" mashup, it's a clichéd drug melodrama, all duct taped and Krazy Glued together into one Frankenstein of a movie.

That said, "Treasure Raiders" is an idiotic delight; near perfect comic book escapism, with just enough unintentionally funny scenes like these to make it a big ol' hoot:

-- CUT to stunt driver speeding through the streets of Moscow, then CUT to ancient David Carradine gesticulating wildly with a steering wheel, obviously not driving at all.

-- Russian bodybuilder Alexander Nevsky is an expressive, genial teddy bear of an actor cut from Arnold's cloth, and is just as indecipherable as Arnold was back in the day.

-- And his girlfriend is, oddly, Sherilyn Fenn, obviously old enough to be his mother, who acts as if she wandered in from the movie set next door.

There's an ancient coded amulet, a secret bible, plot holes wider than Red Square, and a car that shoots rockets.

Actual Russian location shooting lend this movie some much-needed validity, and there are some stunts and racing scenes that are actually quite jaw-dropping. One involving a motorcycle that bursts from a window in the midst of an explosion is truly impressive for a DTV silly like this.

Know what I say? Woo hoo! What a Friday night, with "Treasure Raiders," some 7-layer dip and chips, and a coupla cold ones!

H8rs gonna h8. Don't listen to them. Listen to me. This is a fun one. Pick it up.

There are worse movies than this one but not many. This was like something the TV stations refused to show. The characters were illogical, the plot wasn't believable at all and the whole thing felt like the director was desperately trying to throw in bits from successful movies and TV series to make something great. Well he failed. The worst thing though was the way some of the key elements of the film were displayed. For example, the way the whole Russian culture, way of life and how their law enforcement and intelligence organizations work was so badly reflected that it was embarrassing to watch. The two main male characters were both poorly written with their mixed and contradicting behavior. The female characters were were poorly chosen and their acting was terrible. The only good actor in this film was the old man form kill bill -movie. I can't help to wonder why in the world would be want to be in a film like this one?

Even though the effects and other stuff in this movie looked like they didn't cost an arm and a leg, I still hope the people behind this complete waste of time lost all their money on this film so they won't be making another any time soon.

Great! Exceptional movie! The best movie I have ever seen after Borat. Has a deep philosophical meaning. It's a MUST SEE (twice). The director shows great insight into Russian culture and modern realties. If you were ever interested in Russia then this movie is all you need to understand the inner depths of the siberian soul. The plot is nothing but genius!!! Actors are the best the world has to offer. Alexander Nevsky has the sexiest attitude, and his accent is so believable! Great job guys! Can't wait for the Treasure Raiders II. A-W-E-S-O-M-E! YAY!!! MOTHER Russia!!!!!!!!!!!!! Great! Exceptional movie! The best movie I have ever seen after Borat. Has a deep philosophical meaning. It's a MUST SEE (twice). The director shows great insight into Russian culture and modern realties. If you were ever interested in Russia then this movie is all you need to understand the inner depths of the siberian soul. The plot is nothing but genius!!! Actors are the best the world has to offer. Alexander Nevsky has the sexiest attitude, and his accent is so believable! Great job guys! Can't wait for the Treasure Raiders II. A-W-E-S-O-M-E! YAY!!! MOTHER Russia!!!!!!!!!!!!! Great! Exceptional movie! The best movie I have ever seen after Borat. Has a deep philosophical meaning. It's a MUST SEE (twice). The director shows great insight into Russian culture and modern realties. If you were ever interested in Russia then this movie is all you need to understand the inner depths of the siberian soul. The plot is nothing but genius!!! Actors are the best the world has to offer. Alexander Nevsky has the sexiest attitude, and his accent is so believable! Great job guys! Can't wait for the Treasure Raiders II. A-W-E-S-O-M-E! YAY!!! MOTHER Russia!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Absolutely enjoyed the film! Great production value, awesome cast, amazing stunts! Very good quality on every aspect! Dynamic, fun, entertaining, promoting good values. Really enjoyed it!

Not to mention that Alexander Nevsky looks absolutely gorgeous and is a total eye candy all the way through!

The idea is interesting and I enjoyed the opening with the throwback to the olden days.

Saw some familiar faces among the cast members as well. They managed to put together a great ensemble of talented and well known actors, that worked very well together!

Great film, Would definitely watch it again!

Lop-sided story involves street racing, lost treasure of the Knights Templar, and drug dealing. It's entertaining, but filled with plot holes, lame dialogue, and actors who cannot act. Numerous errors include:

Historians handling centuries-old documents with their bare hands. Real historians would be wearing gloves to open a 500-year old book, and they would be in a sealed room, not at a table in the public library. We are in Moscow, but the magazines are printed in English? And everyone speaks English? Sure.

The strongest man in Russia, a very handsome guy who is surrounded by smoking hot girls, dates a woman that looks like Senator Diane Feinstein of California? Speaking of Russians, this movie has at least one example of every stereotype Russian bad guy. Quite the cast!

It was nice of David Carradine to appear for some name-dropping on the DVD cover. Especially since none of the other actors have ever been heard of, before or since this movie was made.

Still, there is some respectable"Fast and Furious" street racing, a great car chase at the climax of the film, some archaeological intrigue (the lost treasure of The Knights Templar), and a leading lady who provides some decent eye candy.

Worth watching while laying on the couch. Just don't expect too much.