Gulag (1985)

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In this made-for-TV thriller, a sportscaster engineers a daring escape from a Soviet prison camp after being snared by a KGB scheme. Mickey Almon (David Keith), a sports star-turned-journalist, arrives in Moscow to cover an international tournament. Soon, though, he's tempted to play the hero once again, this time not as an athlete, but as a smuggler of repressed scientific research. Against the advice of his wife (Nancy Paul), Mickey agrees to help the Russians who've approached him, but the entire intrigue turns out to be a set-up. Physically neglected and emotionally tortured in a stinking hole for several weeks, Mickey agrees to sign a confession after being told that it will guarantee his release. Instead, he receives a ten-year sentence and soon finds himself on a train bound for Siberia. Sewing rough-hewn gloves with the other foreign prisoners and living for the day each month when his care package arrives, Mickey soon resolves to escape or die trying. To that end, he enlists a cynical British spy (Malcolm McDowell) and a group of Soviet prisoners in a plan to escape via a supply train that can get them within reach of the West -- if only they can find a way to get onto it undetected. Gulag was directed by Roger Young, who previously helmed such lauded TV movies as Bitter Harvest and would go on to direct the original televised version of Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi