A lot of the reviews for this film use the word "fun", which is code for "unreal", "ridiculous", "silly". That pretty much sums up this umpteenth foray into the cop/buddy flick. The slight difference is the two guys aren't partners, but city rivals. But, as usual, they detest each other, battle a big bad guy, and have a sexy girl caught between them. One of the zillion unreal elements begins with these two guys constantly grabbing headlines in LA. Now, I've lived near LA all my life. Not once has there ever been an officer who was a superstar/celebrity type of superior abilities. And, as we usually see in movies, these guys are non-uniformed, fancy car driving studs. Anyway, off to the plot. The two guys are hated by an aged, wealthy drug runner (Palance). For reasons only known to him, he doesn't want the two simply capped in the head and out of the way. I assume he wants to physically and mentally torture them, so he orchestrates a, yet once more unreal, frame-up that lands the two in jail. There's even an obligatory "You're goin' down for this" from a fellow officer at the scene of the crime. Then, on the inside, ALL the guards are corrupt, which allows prisoners to roam the grounds at will, the powerful drug guy to pay visits, Russell and Stallone to be tortured in a boiler room, etc. Each guy has a friend on his side, Russell the warden, Stallone his captain. Now it's odd that the captain, who knows Stallone is innocent, fails to share this with other authoroties. Even the address of a henchman that he's obtained. After a prison break, there's the big bad finale where the two take on armies of machine gun blasting toadies of Palance's. Then a dopey final gunshot that puts an exclamation point on the list of unreal moments. Now, with all that said, why did I still like this? The dynamite script. Feldman provides a ton of one-liners and comic moments, which aided the implausibility of the proceedings. Not to mention some nicely shot moments of action. So, for a good "turn off your brain" adventure where you'll be asked to go easy on quality, give this a shot.
Review of Tango & Cash
