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ACTOR
William HurtLee MarvinBrian DennehyIan Bannen
DIRECTOR
Michael Apted
SYNOPSICS
Gorky Park (1983) is a English movie. Michael Apted has directed this movie. William Hurt,Lee Marvin,Brian Dennehy,Ian Bannen are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1983. Gorky Park (1983) is considered one of the best Crime,Drama,Mystery,Thriller movie in India and around the world.
An investigator on the Moscow police force relentlessly pursues the solution to a triple homicide which occurred in Moscow's Gorky Park. He finds that no one really wants him to solve the crime because it is just the tip of a complex conspiracy which involves the highest levels of the Moscow city government.
Same Actors
Gorky Park (1983) Reviews
...one day, Arkasha, one day!
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!
Well Made, Bittersweet Police Procedural
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.
Great thriller; they don't make 'em like this anymore
Watching this with a friend of mine, he commented "I was just saying the other day, even the 'B' movies from the 70s are better than the best movies today." Even allowing for the fact that this came out in 1983, that's an excellent point. They rarely make movies like this anymore. It's an exciting spy thriller, but it's realistic, and it's got some brains behind it as well. There are no idiotic "Air Force One" acrobatics, no gigantic explosions (with a character jumping towards the camera in the foreground) and no snappy catch-phrases. Just a good mystery and a boatload of great performances. One thing that's interesting about this film is that in the end, the mystery turns out to be about commerce, not politics, which is unusual for this sort of cold-war Soviet thriller. Another exceptional feature is the great script by the legendary Dennis Potter. This sort of thing makes me wish he had done more movie scripts for hire. While it's certainly not a personal project like Pennies for Heaven or The Singing Detective, Potter still turns in a top-notch script, filled with typically Potterian touches (like frequent references to losing your skin, and the smart, snappy, hilarious dialogue in general). Another Potter touch (also used in Christabel) is the way all the characters (except the Americans) use British accents. This is a little disconcerting at first, but once you're used to it, it works really well. First, an actor playing a Russian and speaking English with a British accent is hardly any more "unrealistic" than an actor speaking English with a Russian accent. More importantly, the use of British accents (as in Christabel) allows Potter and the actors to indicate the characters' relative social status, by the type of accent they have. Intellectually, it doesn't make any sense to have the Soviet administrators talk in an upper class British accent, and the regular cops speak with a Cockney accent, but artistically, it induces an immediate emotional response in the viewer that makes a real difference between the two characters instead of just presenting us with two indistinguishable "Russian cops". All in all, this is an under-appreciated thriller that holds up extremely well, over twenty years later.
Good fun in Helsinki
I enjoy this film immensely, not only for the great acting of Brian Dennehey, William Hurt, and Lee Marvin, but for the fact that it is about police in some place other than New York or Los Angeles. Hurt is very believable as a Russian cop who has to track down a murderer. Marvin is great as his adversary, the corrupt American businessman. The primary complaint about this film is that it wasn't filmed in Russia. What people tend to forget is that it was made at the height of the cold war, and Soviet Premier Chernenko and the Politburo would not have opened Moscow to an American film crew, much less one that wanted to make a movie that depicts the various Russian agencies and beuraucrats as being as corrupt as Marvin. In the end, they settled for Helsinki, Finland (which I guess is a fair trade-off, since Finland was technically a part of Russia for a few hundred years). Those who are familiar with Helsinki will probably mock this film (as my Finnish girlfriend did), but if you're not familiar, or willing to look past that shortcoming, then you will probably enjoy this movie quite a bit. They even went as far as to use Russian built "Ladas" (a brand of car) in the movie. Today, this movie would have been made in Moscow or St. Petersburg, and would probably be better. But it's still good, well made overall, and worth watching.
A Peek At New Mother Russia
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.