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Target<\/strong> (1985)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Suspense-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 117 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Arthur Penn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Howard Berk, Don Petersen and Leonard Stern\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michael Small\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jean Tournier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 8, 1985\u00a0(US)\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Gene Hackman, Matt Dillon, Gayle Hunnicutt, Josef Sommer, Guy Boyd, Viktoriya Fyodorova, Herbert Berghof, Iona Grubel.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $9M (US)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Rating:<\/strong> ***<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Although Target<\/strong> hardly measures up to the other two Gene Hackman-Arthur Penn collaborations- Bonnie and Clyde and Night Moves- it\u2019s a pretty good action-thriller in its own right.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0At the time of its release in Nov. 1985, the only one of Penn\u2019s movies I had seen was the lackluster Four Friends. I knew of his other films and how popular they were with critics and audiences. Target<\/strong>\u00a0wasn\u2019t popular with either collective. Critics tore it apart and audiences stayed away. I didn\u2019t see it right away. I waited a couple of weeks before I decided to check it out one Sunday afternoon. I didn\u2019t like it much back then, but I\u2019ve developed an affinity for it over the years.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Hackman stars as Walter Lloyd, a lumberyard owner in Dallas. He lives a quiet, mundane life with his wife Donna (Hunnicutt, The Spiral Staircase) and college-age son Chris (Dillon, The Outsiders). As Donna prepares to leave for a trip to Paris, she asks her guys to spend some time together and try to bond. Walter and Chris don’t see eye-to-eye on many things; it’s a typical father-son relationship. Walter doesn’t agree with Chris’ decision to quit school to fix stock cars at the local racetrack. Chris thinks his father is boring and plays things too safe. Like I said, typical father and son stuff.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Late one night, Walter receives a phone call informing him that Donna has been missing for two days. He and Chris head to Paris to find out what happened to her. Once they arrive, things really start to happen. Somebody tries to kill Walter at the airport, but he manages to successfully dodge the attempt on his life. That’s when he figures out that his wife has been kidnapped. He visits the American embassy where he leaves word that \u201cDuke is here.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Shortly thereafter, he meets with the recipient of the message, his old friend Taber (Sommer, Witness). They briefly talk about Walter\u2019s situation with Taber telling him and Chris to wait at their hotel for the kidnappers to make contact. Moments later, another attempt is made on Walter\u2019s life. It\u2019s a good thing Chris is there to save his ass. That\u2019s when Dad finally comes clean and admits to his son that he used to work for the CIA. He left or the sake of his family with the agency giving them all new identities. Now, twenty years later, it looks like somebody found him and wants his attention. Well, they got it!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Target <\/strong>is an interesting albeit uneven movie; it’s a blend of espionage thriller and family drama. Penn was clearly trying to make something a bit different from the routine action fare that dominated cinemas around that time. I recall a good-sized list of action flicks that came out around the same time- e.g. \u00a0Commando, Invasion USA, American Ninja, The Annhilators, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, To Live and Die in L.A. and Death Wish 3.\u00a0<\/strong>He didn\u2019t want <\/strong>Target<\/strong>\u00a0to get lost in the shuffle, yet that\u2019s exactly what happened.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Target<\/strong> isn\u2019t one of those thrill-a-minute deals, but it does have a few decent action scenes. I like the chase scene in Hamburg\u00a0when some bad guys go after Walter and Chris as they set out to meet somebody who might know something about the person or persons who kidnapped his wife. There\u2019s another great bit where Chris watches helplessly as the killer that\u2019s been stalking them finally gets the jump on his father…. or so he thinks.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Unfortunately, Target<\/strong>\u00a0falters in its more dramatic moments. The scenes where father and son try to understand one another come off as clumsy. A long conversation Walter has with a woman he knew back in the day serves no real purpose other than reminding him of what could have been had he chosen not to leave the CIA. The drama part of Target<\/strong>\u00a0isn\u2019t bad in any way; it\u2019s just an uneasy fit with the intrigue portion of the plot.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Hackman always turns in great performances and\u00a0Target <\/strong>is no exception. He has an Everyman quality that makes him effective in any type of role. Unfortunately, I’m not so wild about Dillon’s performance. He’s a rather one-note actor. He doesn\u2019t possess the dramatic gravitas necessary to play this kind of role. Also, it doesn\u2019t help that his character isn\u2019t too bright. Isn\u2019t he the least bit suspicious when he keeps running into the same girl (Grubel) everywhere he goes? You could argue that he\u2019s merely inexperienced, but common sense has to kick in at some point, right?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u00a0Its flaws notwithstanding, I enjoyed Target<\/strong>. It\u2019s a more than adequate espionage thriller, ideal for weekend matinee viewing. It has a neat twist or two although more seasoned viewers will probably see them coming. No matter, Target<\/strong> mostly succeeds in what it sets out to do. So what if it\u2019s not Penn\u2019s best work? It\u2019s still better than a lot of the crap that gets released these days.<\/p>\r\n Target (1985)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Suspense-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 117 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Arthur Penn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Howard Berk, Don Petersen and Leonard Stern\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michael Small\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jean Tournier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 8, 1985\u00a0(US)\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Gene Hackman, Matt Dillon, Gayle Hunnicutt, Josef Sommer, Guy Boyd, Viktoriya Fyodorova, Herbert Berghof, Iona Grubel.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $9M (US) \u00a0Rating: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hidden-treasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Target-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":386,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions\/386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Target-POSTER.jpg?resize=620%2C945&ssl=1\")
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