Gorky Park

It has been a long time since I last viewed this film, but it was a welcome revisit, and a chance to see a great performance by William Hurt (Kiss of the Spider Woman, A History of Violence, The Proposition). After about a dozen of his films, I never tire of watching him act.

The cast also included Lee Marvin in a very good performance, and the ever-lovable Brian Dennehy. This was also the American debut of Joanna Pacula, who got a Golden Globe nomination for her outstanding performance. And, we also got to see her golden globes in a skintastic moment, right before she gets Hurt! This was her finest film in a career spanning 30 years.

Do not miss this fine police procedural with a surprise ending. The motive is brilliant.

This is a very good movie with excellent performances by William Hurt and Lee Marvin.If I have a list of favorite movies of all the time, this will qualify as such. A very good adaptation of the book by Martin Cruz Smith. The portrayal of life in Moscow was fascinating,although the movie did not remain faithful to the book one hundred percent.Of course for resons of time script had to be changed a little.But none of the suspense was missing. The action was fast paced , it's one of those movies you don't want it to end.The music score complimented this intense detective story set in a frosty Moscow.I recommend this movie to all those who like original stories set in exotic places like this one in Russia.Arkady Renko is really the epitome of the non-conformistic citizen who cynically sneers at the rotten aparatus of the communist state while trying to solve this triple homicide.

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!

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.

This film has stood the test of time and repeat viewings for me. Have watched about 10 times over the past 20 years and each time I am totally engrossed. Excellent crime-mystery drama. The dialog in this movie is as good as any I know. Scenery and the settings make you feel like you are in Russia during winter: bleak and frigid. Performances by Hurt, Marvin, Dennehey, and Bannen are all solid if not outstanding. Some may be put off by English and Americans performers posing as Russians, but don't let the lack of dialect authenticity get in your way of enjoying this gem. For comparison I would rank it with LA Confidential within its genre.