kai ringler
boy how I really love this film,, first off Gene Hackman gives a performance worthy of an Oscar, Tommy Lee Jones was great in this movie,, Dennis Franz was great to , and Pam Grier had a small role in here to. this movie is set in the Cold War, the tail end of it, and Hackman is assigned to bring in a man on some petty violation of sorts. turns out the man isn't who he's supposed to be, the man Hackman is supposed to be escorting back to Germany is already dead. he get's assaulted in the bathroom and the prisoner escapes. so this is basically the beginning to a political assassination,, it takes awhile to get there, and may move slower in spots. but round halfway this movie cranks up the action and doesn't let go,, kinda like a modern day Kennedy assassination thing going on here, with the term "patsy" and all of the political propaganda going around.. everyone who worked on this film deserves much praise, for this is really a great movie,, not a classic, but way better than most of the stuff that comes out of Hollywood these days.
FlashCallahan
Johnny Gallagher is sent from Germany with a prisoner. The prisoner escapes from the men's room at National Airport and Hackman begins his search for his man.Enlisting the help of his ex-wife and various old friends, he finds that the prisoner is part of a plot by senior military personnel on both sides.Their aim is to kill a very high-ranking world figure in order to sabotage arms control talks....For a film directed by a seasoned action auteur, and staring behemoths like Hackman and Jones, the film is really boring and mundane in places.Made in a time when film makers thought that audiences would be enthralled by stuffy men in rooms talking a lot, a lot of the cast are wasted, and the action scenes are just a montage of men with moustaches chasing Hackman and co.Hackman and Jones are great though, and when they share the screen, the film blisters in entertainment, but it isn't long enough.The last ten minutes are interesting and Davis does an amazing job of the climax, but we have to trawl through a mundane set up before the end.A waste.
treeskier802
For about the first half of this movie, the story was very gripping. Tommy Lee Jones and Gene Hackman are both on top of their game. However, once Hackman and Cassidy's characters get to Chicago the film starts to drag and the ending gets predictable. Cassidy's character who started out interesting and intellingent doesn't get anything interesting to do toward the end of the film. The concept, an 80s version of the Kennedy Assisination with a twist is solid, but the movie just runs out of steam. If you like spy thrillers or the Kennedy conspiracies, you may find this movie somewhat entertaining. If you pass on watching this, you aren't really missing much either. Rating 6 of 10 stars.
lastliberal
Maybe it was his role as Gary Gilmore in The Exectioner's Song seven years previous that got him noticed and cast in this movie, but the career of Tommy Lee Jones, roommate of Al Gore at Harvard, was never the same afterwards. He got the crazy role in Under Siege and the the super role in The Fugutive and the rest is history.His part here was small, but significant. Another small part went to Pam Grier, who managed to depart fairly early in the film. Oh, well, I always like seeing her.The main actors were Gene Hackman (Unforgiven, The french Connection), Joanna Cassidy (Who Framed Roger Rabbit), and Dennis Franz (NYPD Blue). They stumbled into an assignation plot, and gave us a good thriller.I would be remiss if I didn't mention Marco St. John. Probably not a name many are familiar with, but he has had a lot of small roles, and I used to know him when I lived in Mississippi many years ago. Just wanted to throw that in there.
AD
