Gorky Park

It's winter and three corpses are found in Moscow's Gorky Park. They've had their faces and finger tips carved off. Arkady Renko, an honest, slightly obsessive Russian cop, is assigned to the case. He sets out to identify the bodies by reconstructing their faces, and as he gets closer he finds obstructions in his path. He finds a girl (Joanna Pacula) who was friends of the trio, a wealthy and ruthless American (Lee Marvin), an American cop (Brian Dennehy) out for blood, and more than he probably wants to know about sable coats and the animals they're made from. It becomes clear that corrupt higher-ups are involved in something with greater stakes than solving a triple murder. Hurt and Marvin do great jobs and are well matched.

This is a tight, very well constructed police procedural that is a little exotic, with the cops and functionaries being Russians. It's also a bit gloomy with a bitter sweet ending, but it still works as a very watchable film. A lot of the outdoor shots were filmed in Helsinki, and the movie takes place in the winter. The atmosphere looks cold and oppressive. The contrast is striking with the scenes set in a pre-revolutionary bath and an expensive restaurant, both reserved for the use of privileged Soviet officials.

The book, by Martin Cruz Smith, is even better. Apted also directed Enigma, and I like both movies a lot.

This film begins with three young adults skating on a frozen lake in Moscow. Not long afterward, their bodies are found, and to the horror of the investigating military agent, "Arkady Renko" (William Hurt), their faces and fingerprints have been surgically removed. In addition to that, two of them were shot in the mouth, rendering dental recognition almost impossible as well. Even more perplexing to him is the fact that the KGB insists on not taking over the investigation even when it appears that one of the victims is an American. To underscore his concerns, his immediate supervisor, "Chief Prosecutor Iamskoy" (Ian Bannen), also voices his suspicions of the KGB's involvement in these murders and advises him to be extremely cautious. What he doesn't realize, however, is just how far up the corruption extends to not only his department--but within the KGB as well. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a pretty interesting film due in large part to the way the director (Michael Apted) captured the cold Russian winter environment of Moscow so well. I also liked the performances of both William Hurt and Joanna Pacula (as "Irina Asanova"). That being said, I found this movie to be quite entertaining, and I recommend it to viewers interested in a film of this sort.

Though the story does drag a bit in the telling, Gorky Park is a good look at what turned out to be the birth of post Soviet Union Russia.

First and foremost Gorky Park is a murder mystery, despite the politics. That's what William Hurt is all about, he's for want of an American term, a homicide cop with the Moscow PD. He's been handed a nasty triple homicide, three young people, two men and a woman whose faces and finger prints were mutilated making identification a challenge.

Of course this was done for a reason and soon Hurt finds himself up to his neck in a turf struggle with the Soviet KGB. There's an American businessman played by Lee Marvin who's in the mix as well as Russian pathologist Ian Bannen and an American homicide cop Brian Dennehy. Hurt also gets involved romantically with Soviet dissident Joanna Pacula and it turns out she's the key to the whole case.

The film was shot in Stockholm, Helsinki, and Glasgow all cold climate cities that serve very well as location stand ins for Moscow. Best in the film is Lee Marvin who went back to playing bad guys as he did in his early years for this one.

In the turf struggle depicted between the Moscow Police and the KGB you see a whole lot of issues talked about and you can see why the Soviet Union fell apart as it did. Too bad the story couldn't have been better told in a tighter screenplay.

Gorky Park is one of my favorite political thriller and a film I watch regularly. I have never understood why it is not better known and better rated.

As is often with Cold War Spy films, the system is corrupt on both sides, and it's the every day people who pay the price of the greed and dishonesty of those playing the games behind the scene. The only way to survive is to be invisible and never get mixed up in a case that has political ties. William Hurt plays Arkady Renko, a Moscow police man who gets one of those cases. Three bodies are found in Gorky Park. Faces and fingertips have been removed and KGB seams to know something about this but they do not want the case. KGB does not like Arkady Renko very much since he has tried to prove their guilt once before and he is sure that they are now out for a revenge. The case is somehow connected to Jack Osborne, an American business man played by Lee Marvin.

The film does not shy away from criticizing both sides. Not only do the politics come off as hypocritical, the whole world of espionage is shown as an inhuman and cruel game of greedy and power hungry opportunists.

Some have criticized the film for not capturing the book well enough. It is rather unfair to expect a 2 hour long film to include everything from a 600 page book. A feature film of such a long book is always going to be a shortened version. I think Dennis Potter (yes the one and only) does a great job of capturing the moral bankruptcy of both systems, communism and capitalism. How they are in fact the same. Just a way to keep the little man busy and blind so those in power can get rich by corrupting the system.

Not perfect but not far from it.

A very unique, fast moving and entertaining story about political and criminal intrigue in Cold War (real cold, just watch the movie!) Russia. The grisly murder of three young people sends our protagonist, Inspector Arkady Renko (W. Hurt), on a complex, intertwining mission to find out who and/or what was behind this dastardly crime. As the crime facts unfold, potential suspects begin to surface in the mind of the inspector, suspects that may include American collusion with KGB officials. Maybe not entirely novel on the surface, but the sequences of events and the characterizations set forth are anything but pedestrian.

Perhaps the sequences of the facial reconstruction of the 3 victims "de-skinned" facial bones and the subsequent deductions provide the impetus for an unusual plot setting. The involvement of the American cop (B. Dennehy), the Siberian beauty and romantic interest (J. Pacula) who wants out of her homeland, the rich American (L. Marvin), the inspector's police buddies, to name a few, provide more than mere tangential plot fodder: the sum of their actions coalesces in the inspector's mind and takes him closer yet to what could be a very inconvenient truth. All this is done cinematically with good pace and little wasted motion.

It is noteworthy that most of the so-called Russians are British Isles actors who maintain their native brogue while donning the usual Kossack-like apparel! Yet their histrionic adeptness suffers not and their characterizations come off well. After all, we've seen this type of casting done before, but I don't think we could pull this off in modern Russia. Instead of filming in Finland with British actors, we would be filming in Moscow or St. Pete with Russian actors.

Any additional reviewing will get me into the "spoiler" category, so I'll just sign off by saying see the movie. To me, it is William Hurt's best!