Target (1985)

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This thriller sees former spy Gene Hackman running around Paris, meeting various contacts and battling a rather nasty enemy in the form of a man with glasses who doesn't think twice about bumping off those who stand in his way. This has some fairly tense and exciting moments but it's let down by a plodding running time and, towards the end of the film, in the last half an hour, nothing really happens. The plot falls apart and the sense of pacing which filled the first half of the film evaporates, instead boredom sets in.Hackman is as good as he ever was, a real tough guy and charismatic too. Matt Dillon is well cast as his unlikely son who finds himself caught up in all sorts of espionage and intrigue. The rest of the people are minor characters who are quite forgettable, especially the villains who get far too little screen time and aren't really that threatening anyway. There are a couple of good car chases, explosions and some nice action bits but overall this film is a missed opportunity - for a good Paris-based thriller try either THE FRENCH CONNECTION II or RONIN, which do tend to make better use of scenery and help to emphasise Paris' claustrophobic architecture.

I've read some other reviews and blogs about how bad Hackman was ,a forced portrayal and that Dillon was a one note wooden character. I disagree because the movie works on the level it was designed for by having the most unlikely people involved in international intrigue. Hackman plays Walter Lloyd a mild mannered who lives in Dallas with his wife and son Chris played by Dillon. They have a shaky relationship at best with Chris resenting his father somewhat as a bumbling old fool and Walter's wife Donna also having issues with him for being less of a romantic husband. She is going on a trip to France but he doesn't want to go so she goes alone. The movie takes a while to get going until she is kidnapped and both father and son have to go and save her. Chris is all smug about going to France since he speaks French and thinks he will be the man having to lead his bumbling father around by the hand. That is until his dad rattles of French like a pro and gets tough with people. He then reveals to Chris that a long time ago he used to work for the CIA as a spy during the cold war and that with a wife and new baby on the way -he had chosen to retire so he could be with them. He also tells Chris that his real name is Derrick Potter and that his name is really Duncan- Walter aka Duncan would have made a lot of enemies during his spy days and he knew he had to keep his family safe hence why they were put into a type of witness protection program.The movie then takes off with Walter and Chris on the run from other factions who want both of them dead and a major double cross by one of the agents. The only thing I can see that keeps this movie from being better is what is changed from the book- most notable that in the book Walter gets tough on Chris and slaps him for almost getting them killed and the assassin Carla is actually shot and killed later on after tricking Chris into exposing his father to another assassin.Also in the book the whole reason for the kidnapping of Walters wife is told in flashback - how they had caught 6 out of 7 German spies. The 7th spys family is murdered and its described in detail- the killer is also described so we know it's not Walter. In the movie ,Walter simply jokes with Chris about almost getting them killed due to Chris's infatuation with the sexy assassin Carla and Carla is not killed ,She ends up getting slugged by Chris and sent flying across some cafe tables after she holds him at gunpoint revealing to Chris that she is one of the assassins sent to kill Chris and his father. She is not seen again after that scene. They do mention the circumstances around the 7th spy who got away but the murders are only briefly touched on by the 7th spy when he finally meets up with Walter ,they are not shown. The ending in the book is different too with Walter staying behind in Europe while Chris and his mother go home realizing how much Walter has changed and that he was not the father/husband they both thought they knew,in the movie Chris ,Walter and Donna end up hugging each other in a field someplace in East Germany after they save her from the double agent and the cold war spy who thought Walter had killed his family. Overall though , 8/10 .a bit uneven but entertaining with both Dillon and Hackman giving decent performances considering the characters are a bit underwritten.

The first time I saw this, about ten years ago, I thought it was pretty cool. Zippy car chases, nicely staged, up and down stairs in Hamburg, in and out of passageways, and so forth. Three -- count 'em -- three gorgeous women. Gene Hackman and Matt Dillon, a couple of engaging actors. And it had an interesting premise, too. Young man doesn't get along well with his dad, discovers dad was a CIA spy, develops new respect for him.But I just saw it again, less distracted by the puzzling plot, and it was something of a disappointment. The women are just as gorgeous, Gene Hackman is as good as he almost always is, and the shenanigans with the cars are as exciting, but the rest seems pedestrian, almost amateurishly done -- from the script to the direction.I'll give you an example of what I mean. Hackman and Dillon are driving on a crowded road outside of Paris. Hackman is driving slowly and Dillon impatiently urges him to speed it up. Hackman, his eyes on the rear-view mirror, says, "We've got company." Then he shifts into a lower gear and the Peugot leaps ahead. "What are you doin'?" Dillon exclaims. "Seeing how good he is," replies Hackman with a slight smile. There follows a high speed chase with cars twirling around on wet sandy roads, through some kind of quarry, and it ends with Hackman confronting the other driver and telling him to quit following him. The chase is fine. But it's pointless. Why is the car chase in the movie anyway? "Seeing how GOOD he is?" That's the reason these lives are put in danger for five hectic minutes? Not to mention the Peugots? That would be a great motive for a car chase in a kiddy cartoon.The rest of the plot is almost as weak. Matt Dillon's character is a complete irritation for the first third of the movie. He seems to have nothing but contempt for his father, although Hackman doesn't seem to be guilty of much more than losing the kid's jitterbug bass lure. Dillon is always noodging him, the way Captain Ahab was always noodging Moby Dick. The kid is a dumb, self-indulgent slob and Hackman can never do anything right. Well -- that's okay as a proposition, but it's very poorly delivered, and Dillon's character is turned into a strident stereotype. Furthermore, Dillon himself gives an artless and unconvincing performance in a role that maybe nobody could convincingly enact. When Dillon finds out his father, whom he'd thought to be an ineffective stick-in-the-mud, was a spy, he almost begins to weep as he goes through his lines -- "You've been lying to me all this time." Dillon ought to be elated at discovering his Dad's secret identity.Another curious incident, among so many curious incidents: the evil guys (and man, do they LOOK evil with their black leather coats and their rimless spectacles as thick as Coke bottle bottoms) have kidnapped Hackman's succulent wife, Gale Hunnicutt, because he has information they want him to spill. So the first thing they do when he steps off the plane is try to massacre him in a drive-by shooting? Did I miss something? Why kill someone you need to wring information from?I won't go on, I guess. It's still an engaging movie if you're seeing it for the first time because you don't know where it's going to turn next. And the location shooting is interesting too, reminding us that in the middle of a chill wintry drizzle even Paris doesn't look so hot, never mind Hamburg. It has other exciting moments that I haven't mentioned. Identities twist themselves inside out unexpectedly. I don't want to get into that and possibly debase the film's chief virtue.

My boyfriend is a big Gene Hackman fan so he wanted to rent this movie every time he passed it in the store. This movie is utterly forgettable, slow-moving, boring, and extremely clichéd. It would not have made it to video without Gene Hackman in the lead role. I like Matt Dillon, but he does not act well in this movie. My boyfriend kept imitating Matt's facial expressions (surprise, confusion, happy) which turned it into a comedy for me.Even the ending of the movie is silly with an exploding building. You wish everybody would blow up too. I think they play ring around the rosy or something at the end.