The Berlin Conspiracy

My review was written in August 1992 after watching the movie on Columbia TriStar video cassette.

Hopelessly out-of-date, this end-of-Cold War action pic was made to cash in on the coming down of the Berlin Wall but arrives too late to be of any interest.

Shot in Bulgaria, espionage piece has a CIA man (Marc Singer) and East German State Security operative (Stephen Davies) joining forces to combat terrorists who've stolen experimental canisters capable of wiping out hundreds of thousands of people.

In corny fashion, the two heroes from opposite sides don't get along but have to unite for a common purpose. Tame romantic subplot has a German double agent (miscast Mary Crosby) in love with both of them.

Instead of re-shooting to update the picture, the final scene has Davies announcing "in a few years Germany will be Germany again", cuing Singer's lame duck voice-over that the actual reunification occurred on October 3, 1990. Pic's dumbest wisecrack goes to Singer who remarks after a heavy falls to his death: "That's one bad Czech that didn't bounce".

This is an interesting take on the fall of the Berlin wall and the surrounding impact on the lives of the people. Though not always accurate, its heart is in the right place and reminds me of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and all those great Cold War movies. Ironically, this is the last of its kind, and in a way a tribute to them. Marc Singer is a bit stiff but Stephen Davies and Mary Crosby inhabit their characters effectively.