The Package (1989)

Directed by Andrew Davis. Starring Gene Hackman, Joanna Cassidy, Tommy Lee Jones, Dennis Franz, John Heard, Ron Dean, Pam Grier, Kevin Crowley, Nathan Davis, Johnny Lee Davenport, Chelcie Ross. [R]

Routine Cold War political paranoia thriller undercuts its own hero by giving him a contrived lapse in judgment in the first act so that the rest of the film can then proceed. Hackman plays that hero, a semi-disgraced Green Beret officer assigned the duty of escorting a “package” from West Berlin to the US—the package being a cynical Army prisoner (Jones) who escapes with minimal effort, aided by the shadowy interference of others (gasp, a conspiracy!). Davis’ crisp, muscular direction and a reliable cast maintain marginal interest throughout, but there’s not much here that hasn’t been done before, and better. Hackman behind the wheel during a chase across town doesn’t quite invite memories of Popeye Doyle, while the climactic race to stop an assassination hardly merits comparisons to The Day of the Jackal. As usual for the director, the location shooting in his home city of Chicago achieves scenic and atmospheric verisimilitude.

56/100