Company Business * (1991, Gene Hackman, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Kurtwood Smith) – Classic Movie Review 10,890

Director Nicholas Meyer’s 1991 Company Business is a disappointing, tedious espionage comedy thriller with Gene Hackman as Rogue CIA agent Sam Boyd, a former CIA Company man called back to bring jailed Soviet spy Pyiotr Grushenko (Mikhail Baryshnikov) home to Moscow in a trade for an American agent the Soviets had taken. When things foul up in the newly united Germany, they go on the lam in an uneasy partnership together from both the KGB and the CIA, trying to stay alive while trying to unravel an international espionage plot.

Writer-director Meyer’s film is unexpectedly low on thrills and entertainment, with the two normally supremely confident stars surprisingly ill at ease this time.

Though the set-up is not exactly original, it is serviceable enough, but the development, tone and handling are all askew. It is, in short, a misfire, though however it is nicely shot in Technicolor by Gerry Fisher on striking locations.

There was virtually no business for the company, Pathé Entertainment. It cost $18,000,000 and grossed $1,501,785.

Also in the cast are Kurtwood Smith, Terry O’Quinn, Daniel von Bargen, Oleg Rudnick, Géraldine Danon, Nadim Sawalha, Michael Tomlinson, Howard McGillin, Louis Eppolito, Toby Eckholt, Kate Harper, Shane Rimmer as the chairman of Maxine Gray Cosmetics and Elsa O’Toole as the receptionist at Maxine Gray Cosmetics.

Allegedly Baryshnikov hated the film so much that he refused to do publicity for it.

It was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1991) (US) and United International Pictures (UIP) (1992) (UK).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,890

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