Search - Company Business on DVD

Enjoyable & great teaming

Ravyn | Chicago, IL USA | 11/16/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Yes, this "Company Business" is a bit hokey and implausible, but I enjoyed it for the one time teaming of Gene Hackman with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Hackman is right in his element and delivers a solid performance. Baryshnikov is also quite good in one of the few if only film roles where he isn't a dancer. The plot isn't a total dud by any means and has a lot of twists and turns (even if you don't want to examine any of this too closely) along with a least one double-cross, which keeps it moving along and kept me guessing the outcome the first time I saw it. But hey, what James Bond plot is plausible either so I think this is a film you really tune in to see first and foremost because you like the stars and want to see the two of them. But if you don't like Hackman or Baryshnikov, then don't waste your time."

Well "I" liked it!

Pat | PAYSON, Azerbaijan | 09/26/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"After the one star review, I'm feeling kind of stupid. I enjoy this movie. (Present tense. I have a videotape from TV or someplace that I watch occasionally). I'd like to get it on DVD for my RV collection. I like the larger than life characters. One guy makes a statement at the very beginning about Hackman's character, "I hate these old guys. They're always thinking," or something to that effect. Multiply it by two old guys, and it turns into fun. The has-been look they give to the participants, from the Saudi financier-money launderer, who has even been forced to sell the gold fixtures in his bathroom to survive, to the documents forger in a dingy loft adds to the tongue-in-cheek spy atmosphere. The US and Soviet agents chasing the Hackman and Baryshnikov characters have to go way back in their computer histories to find logical accomplices to catch the "old guys." Great stuff."

Business without much profit.

Stuart O'Meara | Dublin, Ireland | 04/08/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The ultimate example of Hollywood acknowledging the end of the cold war era. CIA and KGB agents racing around Europe together hunting down two of their own men. Due to a few mess-ups that are too long winded to get into, Gene Hackman and Mikhail Baryshinov end up running around Berlin at about 4 O'clock in the morning with two million dollars and a road map that neither can read. Hackman is, as always, Brilliant as the "old guy" ex CIA agent called back into service to oversee the swap of a former KGB agent for an American being held in Russia. The film itself though lacks any plausibility. For example, we see the chief of the CIA and his Russian equivalent marching up and down stairwells in the Eiffel Tower, dodging bullets and intimidating witnesses on shady street corners at knife point and, in the dark! Realistic? Definitely not. If this is meant to be a comedy then its simply not funny. If its meant to be serious espionage stuff, then just watch it to see the lack of common sense thought that went into its making. Why the 3 stars? The acting all round is fairly convincing (espicially Hackman) and the basic plot is original. Unfortunately though the film doesn't live up to a storyline which could have showed a lot of potential."

Business as usual

Trevor Willsmer | London, England | 02/13/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Here's a game for really long car journeys - see how many alternative titles you can remember for this one. At one time or another known as Dinosaurs, Patriots, False Passports and Russian Roulette - and there are a lot more where they came from - with Elliott Gould and Marsha Mason announced in supporting roles (neither is anywhere to be seen in the finished film), Glasnost spy comedy-thriller Company Business appears to have been re-edited, reshot and retitled more times than anything this side of Heaven's Gate before finally getting a brief US release to disastrous business.



The scars and indecision don't show too badly; this looks like it was always this average and inoffensive, though what seemed already outdated when it opened now seems a little more wistful with some historical distance as a virtual period piece. Gene Hackman and Mikhail Baryshnikov (the latter looking surprisingly like a young Jimmy Cagney) are amiable in underwritten roles as the obsolete spies set up by their respective employees when a spy swap goes wrong, but Nicholas Meyer is better at directing architecture than people (the first half-hour features some of Ken Adams best production design of the 90s) and just can't think of an ending - after a chase across Germany and France, matters are tied up with almost absurd ease with a shootout followed by a nice meal on the Eiffel Tower. There are some mildly amusing moments along the way and it's watchable in a TV-movie sort of way, but nothing more.



The DVD has a reasonable but not outstanding 1.85:1 transfer and the theatrical trailer the only extra.

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