Director: Arthur Penn
Script: Howard Berk & Don Peterson
Cast: Gene Hackman, Matt Dillon, Gayle Hunnicutt, Josef Sommer, Herbert Berghof, Guy Boyd, Ilona Grubel, Richard Munch, Victoria Fyodorova
Running time: 89 minutes
Year: 1985
Certificate: 15
The film begins with father, Duke (Hackman), trying to build bridges with his son, Chris (Dillon), seeing as the two men clearly don’t see eye-to-eye very often; perhaps only really agreeing that they both have a great wife/mother, Donna (Hunnicutt) in their lives. Hence, when Donna goes missing during a trip to Paris and the lads are informed about this on their return from a fishing trip, they bury their differences to try and find their mutual loved one.
Once they reach Europe, it quickly becomes clear that Duke is a man with history within the CIA and had previously lived and worked in France, and all over Europe, as a ‘wet worker’ for the notoriously clandestine organisation. Duke approaches his ex-colleagues for help and it becomes apparent that the kidnapping is personal and Donna is in more danger than Duke at first thought. From that point on, the action kicks in and the audience has barely time to take a breath before father and son have got themselves into yet another chase or dangerous encounter.
As the story plays out the two men have their own story arcs, not only bringing them closer together, but also learning more about themselves and each other, leading to their developing much more respect for one another. Plus, there’s a cleverly realised scene whereby Chris gets to hear his dad answer some searching questions from one of his father’s ex-lovers, which helps to humanise his dad and enable his son to better understand some of the difficult decisions he’s made over the years.
What starts out somewhat like a Seventies TV movie during its first 15 minutes or so, quickly takes an about face and turns into a well-crafted, exciting and visually impressive action-spy movie full of daring stunts, close shaves and double-crosses. Maybe this was meant to reflect the change from the relative mundanity of their normal lives to the exciting chaos of the hunt for the woman they both love.
If you enjoyed seeing Hackman doing his action stuff in the French Connection films then you’ll get a kick out of Target as he’s involved in car and foot-chases, shoot-outs and punch-ups, once the film kicks into fifth gear for its second act, and beyond. Matt Dillon acquits himself well as the son, who demonstrates a nice balance of youthful bravado and innocent fear and is believably out-of-his-depth for much of the ride.
And it’s not just the men who make an impression, the ladies also put in strong performances, albeit with much more limited screen time, with both Hunnicutt and Ilona Grubel making an impression as mother, Donna, and ex-lover, Lisa, respectively. Also of note are some interesting locations, both in Paris and in East Berlin, giving the film a Cold War aura, which is not very common these days.
Interestingly, the film’s initial ‘bad guy’ turns out to be more sympathetic at a later stage, although many of his actions are hard to condone. But that’s the nature of spy thrillers like Target, where no one side is totally good or bad; there’s only really shades of grey.
I was pleasantly surprised by Target, and would recommend it to fans of thrillers, action films and of Gene Hackman, of course.
Indicator’s Imprint label has done a great job with this special edition release and extras include:
Audio Commentary by film critic Adrian Martin– Martin reminisces about seeing the film at the cinema in his native Australia, back in the 80s, and how he was somewhat disappointed for the first 15 minutes or so, before being impressed more and more as the film hit its stride, once the action elements kicked in. Adrian then goes into quite a bit of detail discussing director Arthur Penn’s long career, although much of his commentary is quite dry and somewhat academic, plus he has a tendency to spend too much time describing what’s happening on screen. According to Penn himself the film is not about family, but about how people are bonded by circumstances.
Interview with Gene Hackman (7 mins) – An archive interview from the eighties, during which Gene talks about the difficulties they had on the shoot, with bad weather, how he’d done some of the car stunts himself, and that they felt that some of the same stunts ended up being used again in the Bond film that came out around the same time. Both films shared some of the same stunt team.
Interview with director Arthur Penn (6 mins) – Penn speaks about the action films that he’d done before (e.g. Little Big Man and Bonnie & Clyde) and how Target isn’t a film to be taken seriously. Apparently, he’d always wanted Gene for the role, and he goes on to say that Hackman is one of the best actors in the world, especially in comedy films as he has great comic timing.
Interview with producers Richard D. Zanack and David Brown (7 mins) – Both producers are agreed that the way to be sure of making a good film is to start with a good script. Apparently, they had to cut their stay in Dallas short due to unusually snowy weather – they had 8 foot snow drifts! They also discuss current (then) cinema trends, saying that the numbers of people were down due to an over-saturation of teenage flicks.
