Streets Of Gold

Without Klaus Maria Brandauer's brilliantly nuanced performance, STREETS OF GOLD might easily have been just another predictable boxing film; with it, this story of a Russian immigrant who trains two young New Yorkers to fight against the Soviet national team is something considerably more. Alek Neuman (Brandauer), a one-time national champion who was prohibited from fighting for the Soviet Union in the Olympics because he is Jewish, emigrates to Brooklyn's Brighton Beach. After "living in Russia like an American," he now lives in "America like a Russian," working as a dish washer, and, disillusioned, he begins drinking heavily. Eventually, however, Alek begins coa...