646f9e108c A retired CIA agent is recruited to participate in a prisoner exchange with the Russians. Rogue CIA agent Sam Boyd is called back by &quot;the Company&quot; to do some work. Namely a hostage trade of jailed Soviet spy Pyiotr Grushenko for an American agent the Soviets had taken. In the newly united Germany the trade goes bad and Grushenko and Boyd find themselves on the run from both the KGB and the CIAthey unravel an International espionage plot set at the end of the Soviet era. American and Soviet find themselves in an uneasy partnershipthey hop around Europe trying to stay alive. Notes: Baryshnikov hated this movie he refused to even do publicity for it. Sam Boyd (Gene Hackman) is a retired CIA agent. He&#39;s recalled by Elliot Jaffe (Kurtwood Smith) to do an off-the-books prisoner exchange with the Soviets. He escorts Pyotr Ivanovich Grushenko (Mikhail Baryshnikov)well$2 million in exchange for captured U2 pilot Benjamin Sobel in the newly united Berlin. At the meeting, Sam recognizes Sobelsomebody he saw at Dulles Airport. They escape in a shootout. Colonel Pierce Grissom (Terry O&#39;Quinn) tells Jaffe to take them out before they are both exposed for the drug money. Boyd uses his old contacts to stay alive. Grushenko tells him that it was indeed Sobel but he&#39;s been turned by the KGB and worked undercover in Americaa professor. Grissom and KGB Colonel Grigori Golitsin are still trying to exchange for Sobel. In Paris, Grushenko reconnects with Natasha Grimaud.<br/><br/>This is a familiar and easy role for Hackman. Baryshnikov is doing the acting without the dancing. Writer/director Nicholas Meyer has done plenty of good stuff especially the even numbered Star Treks. This should be a lot better than it actually turns out to be. There is a lack of tension despite the action. There are comedic turns which feel out of place. The main limitation is the plot which tries to be a tightly written spy storycraft. However, it doesn&#39;t always makes sense motivationally. It may be wound too tightly. The movie should let the characters be human beings rather than plot devices. Gene keeps this movie working and it functions without excelling. The Wall was about to fall,and however it seems that this movie was made a long long time ago ,back in the sixties .Gene Hackman is much too old for this kind of part.Michael Caine,Richard Burton and Paul Newman were about 40,when they were fighting against the commies.The story is so far-fetched that after twenty minutes,we do not care anymore about what may happen to the two heroes.But the biggest bomb comes in the last third,when we learn Natacha&#39;s real identity.That&#39;s so implausible that even the scenes filmed on the Eiffel Tower fail to excite.<br/><br/>Word to the wise:as farNicholas Meyer is concerned,do prefer &quot;Time after time&quot; (1979) an entertaining unpretentious fantastic movie or Herbert Ross&#39;s &quot;the 7% solution&quot; the screenplay of which he wrote.
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