This is a good documentary, but not of the creation of a Russian version of an American sitcom. It's a good documentary of a boorish (if not racist) New Yorker wondering why Russia is not like the world he knows. At around the time this film was made, I (an American) spent four months teaching at a university in Ukraine. I hope I was a better guest than Phil Rosenthal, but I was just as baffled by things I thought were "universal," but were really not. Throughout this documentary, Rosenthal constantly critiques things that are different about Russia, but he really doesn't attempt to understand anyone's point of view. He's only interested in what in their cultural makes him so hard to understand. He does all the Soviet schtick (Russia had been post-Soviet for 20 years when this film was made) and is just plain rude. When he finds out his driver is a veteran who served in Afghanistan, his immediate question is "did you kill anybody?" Imagine if a Russian tourist in the U.S. asked this upon meeting a Vietnam veteran. Rosenthal's sitcom is amusing, but this film definitely is not.
Review of Exporting Raymond
