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After a choice overture in the bathhouse (steam on the inside, snow on the outside, sinew all over), the mighty deadpan is cemented with a beautiful gag (cocaine in the hollow prosthesis). Moscow has a drug problem, "in another ten years it'll be like Miami," Captain Iron Jaw (Arnold Schwarzenegger) chases the Georgian kingpin (Ed O'Ross) to Chicago. James Belushi is his New World guide, slobby cop and "total expert at fucking up." Capitalism is the porn movie playing on a motel telly and the bribe slipped to a snitch, the visitor opts for broken fingers, "Soviet method is more economical." Walter Hill signs the opening titles under the Karl Marx Monument, the rest flows like an acerbic reworking of The French Connection to give glasnost as a case of one brutal system recognizing another. The mountainous Russkie perceives the code he shares with his underworld counterpart, and is not so steely that he won't quietly fret about his pet parakeet being considered "feminine." (When the chief goes on about stress management fads, he recommends vodka.) He's stopped cold at last at the penitentiary under the blank gaze of a blind militant (Brent Jennings) who unleashes a scalding spiel about the nation's oppressive divides. "This is politics, baby, this is economics, this is spiritual!" The pros and cons of socialism are knowingly discussed, Doctor Zhivago is acknowledged but not Dirty Harry. Hill modulates Schwarzenegger's finest moments at polar opposites, stoically munching on diner fries in understanding of the ramrod's essential solitude and then hysterically grimacing in a chickie-run between gargantuan buses. "Nice doing business with you, comrade." Konchalovsky contributes the Russian view shortly after with Tango & Cash. With Peter Boyle, Larry Fishburne, Gina Gershon, Richard Bright, J.W. Smith, Gretchen Palmer, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Michael Hagerty, and Brion James.
--- Fernando F. Croce |