Main Cast: Gene Hackman, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Kurtwood Smith, Terry O'Quinn, Daniel Von Bargen
Release Year: 1991
Country: US
Run Time: 99 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
The demise of the Cold War rendered this flat and obsolete spy thriller, written and directed by Nicholas Meyer, mute upon its release in 1991. Gene Hackman plays Sam Boyd, a retired CIA agent, now making ends meet by engaging in industrial espionage. But Sam is recalled to duty and ordered to deliver a captured Russian spy, Pyiotr Grushenko (Mikhail Baryshnikov), to East Berlin for a prisoner exchange. Along with Pyiotr, Sam is also transporting $2 million in Columbian drug money to East Berlin. But due to a series of set-ups, Sam and Pyiotr finds themselves working together to keep from getting killed. Sam tries to get help from the CIA, but it turns out that the CIA (along with the KGB) wants them both dead. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Geraldine Danon - Natasha Grimaud; Oleg Rudnick - Grigori Golitsin; Nadim Sawalha - Faisal; Adele Anderson - Marlene; Joachim Bliese - Horst; Bo Brundin; Ali Cilasun - Bedouin; Hans Eckhardt - Subway Driver; Toby Eckholt - Nerdy Young Man; Lou Eppolito - Gonzalez; Andreas Grothusen - Klaus; Kate Harper - Secretary; Boris Isarov - Russian Aide; Gerard Lartigau - Salesman; Francis Le Maire - Maitre D'; Elsa O'Toller - Receptionist; Christof Piesk - Berlin Policeman; Shane Rimmer - Chairman; Bob Sherman - Sobel; Michael Tomlinson - Dick Maxfield; Michel Zurek - French Aide; Howard Feuer; Jeremy Zimmerman; Howard McGillin - Bruce Wilson
Credit
Albrecht Konrad - Art Director, Dirk Petersmann - Associate Producer, Yvonne Blake - Costume Designer, Nicholas Meyer - Director, Ronald Roose - Editor, Michael Kamen - Composer (Music Score), Hasso Von Hugo - Makeup, Ken Adam - Production Designer, Gerry Fisher - Cinematographer, Steven Charles Jaffe - Producer, Eddie Stacey - Stunts, Nicholas Meyer - Screenwriter, Nicolas Roeg - Screenwriter, Rachel Griffiths - Script Supervisor
The film follows the exploits of Sam Boyd (Gene Hackman), a former operative for the CIA who is reactivated to escort Pyotr Ivanovich Grushenko (Mikhail Baryshnikov), a captured KGBmole, to a prisoner exchange in recently reunited Berlin. The exchange is actually a cover for a CIA plot to use drug cartel money to buy back Benjamin Sobel (Bob Sherman), a U-2 pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union during the 1960s. The exchange goes wrong after Boyd recognizes the supposedly-imprisoned Sobel as a man he saw two days before at Dulles Airport, and is subsequently told by Grushenko that it really is Sobel, who is now a KGB agent.
The two agents are forced to go on the run from both Boyd's own Company superiors (Kurtwood Smith and Terry O'Quinn) and the head of the KGB (Oleg Rudnik), who all wish to see the exchange completed for reasons that are both obvious and not so obvious. Their only hope may lie in Natasha Grimaud (Géraldine Danon), a mysterious French beauty from Grushenko's past.
