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Rating:  - A So-So Spy Movie
While I'm a big fan of spy thrillers, Hackman, and Baryshnikov, there was something missing in this one -- either a weak screenplay, lackluster direction or both. The result is a movie with only a moderate amount of real suspense.
Both male leads (Hackman & Baryshnikov) and Geraldine Danon do creditable work in this mediocre spy thriller. I only recommend it if you have nothing else you'd really want to see or if you are avid Gene Hackman and/or Mikhail Baryshnikov fans. It's not one of their best either.
Rating:  - Business as usual
Here's a game for really long car journeys - see how many alternative titles you can remember for this one. At one time or another known as Dinosaurs, Patriots, False Passports and Russian Roulette - and there are a lot more where they came from - with Elliott Gould and Marsha Mason announced in supporting roles (neither is anywhere to be seen in the finished film), Company Business appears to have been re-edited, reshot and retitled more times than anything this side of Heaven's Gate before finally getting a brief US release to disastrous business.
The scars and indecision don't show too badly; this looks like it was always this naff. Hackman and Baryshnikov are amiable in underwritten roles as the obsolete spys set up by their respective employees when a spy swap goes wrong, but Nicholas Meyer is better at directing architecture than people (the first half-hour features some of Ken Adams best production design of the 90s) and just can't think of an ending. Watchable in a TV-movie sort of way, but nothing more.
Rating:  - An old-school "cold war" spy-classics with humour and style!
I find this film amazing for some reasons. First of all these are the characters played by Hackman and Baryshnikov. A cynical retired CIA-agent and an arrogant KGB-agent. Rather trite stereotypes. But they are played as perfect and naturally as it is possible! I think, both actors were born to play this couple. Also very good are the performers of minor characters like the Arabian weapons dealer or the CIA-people. Second reason are the dialogues between the main characters. The third thing that makes the movie outstanding is the shown atmosphere of Berlin and Europe right after the Cold War end. I lived there at that time and it is for me like a nostalgic home video :-). The script is a bit silly, but it is a tradition for "USSR vs. USA" spy films. I think it is a classic old-school "cold war" movie with two brilliant main heroes.
Rating: - Another Chase Film
This film starts with a simple deal. An imprisoned Soviet spy and $2,000,000 will be exchanged for a captured American. The deal will be done in an underground station in Berlin. But something is wrong, and the deal is canceled before the swap is done. The opposition open fire, but they escape from them, and the people Sam works for. Now the plot has them on the run with the Two Million in marked money. They escape from the people who pursue them. Until they are found.
The CIA wants to turn over the money to the KGB so they can ransom the captured American. [This money seems to come from a South American drug exporter who makes deals with the right people, the aftermath of the "Contragate" scandal.] But there are complications in the plans. Sam and the Russian plan to take the money for their retirement to the sunny Seychelles. They are found and one is captured. So now they plan to escape with the money. These two manage to outwit the combined forces of the CIA and KGB. Believable? You will see many sights in this film, with humorous scenes.
It will remind you of countless similar stories from "The Defiant Ones" to whatever will be in the movie theaters this year.
Rating:  - Taking "Company Business" way too seriously!
I like this movie. I like Gene Hackman and Mikhail Baryshnikof, and they play off each other very well. There are very serious plot 'issues', and parts of it make no sense at all. However, I am so tired of critics (Both 'self styled' and professional) turning movies into "statements" about the 'human condition', or defining them as 'searing indictments of the times we live in' that I pay as much attention to their reviews as any reader should pay to this one! This is a movie. It's fun. It's fiction. It's sort of stupid. It has no message other than to make money and entertain people.
I can't remember where I first saw it, probably on some cable movie channel, but I looked for it for years till it came out on DVD. I think it is probably because I like the actors, and that I spent lots of time in the locations where it was filmed. The action is entertaining, the contrast between Hackman and Baryshnikof and the typical "James Bond" secret agent is clearly defined. These guys are basically "over the hill has beens" just trying to survive. Sort of like an end of the Cold War Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Just fun holding a weak plot together with irony and a few good laughs. I liked it. (I also repeat myself!)
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