Don't Believe the Hype

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

When three bodies, two men and a woman, are discovered in Moscow's Gorky Park with their faces and other identifying features removed the case is given to Militia inspector Arkady Renko. He is immediately concerned as the KGB have taken an interest in the case but declined his suggestion that they should take over the investigation. The only clues Renko has are the fact that one of the dead had dental work done in the United States, strongly suggesting he was a foreigner, and the woman was wearing ice-skates that had been reported stolen Irina Asanova, a worker on a film set. Hoping to identify the bodies Renko takes two of the heads to Professor Andreev so that he can reconstruct their faces. Fairly early on Renko is introduced to American Furrier Jack Osbourne; a name that keeps cropping up but what could he have to do with the dead bodies? He also crosses paths with another American; William Kirwill, an NYPD detective, who is looking for his missing brother and doesn't trust any agents of the Soviet state.When this film was made the idea of setting a film in Moscow with characters, including the protagonist, who were primarily Russian was almost unthinkable even if it was to feature Western actors and be filmed in Finland. Even though Russia isn't seen as an exotic location these days the film is as good as ever. There is an intriguing central mystery as who the people were killed is as important as who did it. There is also a good sense of paranoia, possibly well founded, as it appears that the KGB are taking a very close interest in Renko. The cast does a really impressive job; William Hurt is great as Renko and Lee Marvin manages to be both menacing and jovial as Osbourne. Brian Dennehy and Joanna Pacula also impress as William Kirwill and Irena. The rest of the cast is made up of familiar British actors including Michael Elphick, Richard Griffiths, Ian McDiarmid and Alexei Sayle to name just a few. While this is very much a drama there are some moments of humour; I particularly laughed at Alexei Sayle's used car salesman/KGB informer. Director Michael Apted nicely captured the sense of paranoia and desire to escape a closed society as well as creating a cold atmosphere of the Russian winter. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to fans of detective dramas looking for something a bit different.

William Hurt is a Russian cop, very handsome, in some conflict with the KGB and all the rest of Soviet rubbish. But strives to solve the mystery of the three bodies found in... Gorky Park of course.He meets Irina, a beautiful young woman and decides that she is involved, and knows more, so, of course, goes into her background. All she really wants is OUT, of Russian of course.Brian Dennehy has a good role, he's an American cop looking for his (now dead) brother. And Lee Marvin has been included, probably just to put a well-known name on the cast list - not very special.Of course there are lots of shooting. All fairly normal?

Gorky Park is William Hurt's finest film role, bar none.It is 1983, it is Moscow, and Hurt is Arkady Renko, a skilled but low-rung detective for the local military police, known as the Militia.Renko is called one wintry night to the scene of a grisly triple murder, the bodies found hard by the public skating rink of Gorky Park. As soon as he arrives to the scene, so do the lethal agents of the Militia's rival agency, the KGB. Renko not only has a hard case to solve, he's got hard rivals watching as he tries to go about it. Strange.The film leaps from a delicately constructed whodunit into a major drama within minutes, as Renko happens across his first witness, the young Russian film assistant Irina. Searingly acted by the gifted Joanna Pacula, there is instant chemistry, confusion, and delightful tension between the male and female leads, and it starts the viewer off into a more modernized version of Casablanca, but with a winching plot that actually keeps us on edge. With two major exceptions, the wider cast of "Soviets" are British, and they are a group of supporting all-stars. Ian Bannen as the viperish prosecutor Iamskoy and Ian "Palpatine" McDiarmid in a heavy cameo as a creepy-cool facial reconstructionist deserve special mention. Lee Marvin and Brian Dennehy are Hurt's co-stars. Both play Americans. For the unwatched, it would spoil some of the fun to hint at whether either of their characters is the heavy, rather it suffices to say that Marvin's role is quintessential Marvin and Dennehy has never done a better Dennehy role than his turn in this film. You get just what those names promise from the Playbill. But William Hurt is the film's core, soul, and mainstay. He does it all, from fighting to quiet psychologies to loving on the stunning, vulnerable, feral Irina, with a deep, brooding, unaffected humanity and sense of the inexorable. Hurt is a wonderful actor and he truly is Shakespearean in stature here as "Arkady beset by Moscow."One quibble. The film's opening credit sequence and introductory shots were economized. With a larger investment and more thoughtful ideas for the main title sequence, perhaps some minor re-jiggering of imagery of the fallen snow as metaphor for the rest of the film, Gorky Park might today be talked about alongside a Breakfast at Tiffany's or a Lawrence of Arabia. The remainder of the film is about that great. Film students and aspiring auteurs should watch Gorky Park, again and again.

From the opening scenes when James Horner's electronic chimes and vibrant chords overlay Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" on the soundtrack, you feel this movie will be something different.A Russian policeman, Arkady Renko (William Hurt), investigates the murder of three young people in Moscow's Gorky Park. Their faces and fingerprints have been burnt off to avoid identification. Renko suspects that the murders involve the KGB, and later connects them to an influential American businessman, Jack Osborne (Lee Marvin). Renko eventually takes the heads of the murdered youths to a specialist, Professor Andreev (Ian McDiarmid) to have them reconstructed.I remember the impact of the graphic facial reconstruction scenes when the film came out in 1983, especially when the grub worms are used to clean off the rest of the flesh. This was a couple of decades before shows like "CSI" and "Silent Witness". Of course we have seen this kind of thing plenty of times since, but if this wasn't the first time it featured, it must have been close to it.The investigation reveals a woman linked to the victims, Irina (Joanna Pacula), and the brother of one of the victims, a New York detective, William Kirwell (Brian Denehey), also becomes involved. He is at first an adversary whom Renko describes as, "Somebody with fists made of stone", but later they become allies. Finally Renko uncovers a trade in stolen Russian sables worth millions, and exposes corruption in high places."Gorky Park" has a strong plot, but it's the Russian background that gives the film its edge. It all looks quite authentic despite the fact it wasn't filmed there. This was before the Iron Curtain came down and Finland substituted for Russia. But it seems to work well.Renko and his associates are cynical and overworked policemen not dissimilar to those in cop shows made in the West. They have to keep an eye out for the KGB, but they go about their job in a professional way, following the clues and slowly piecing together what happened.Hurt is excellent. He adopts a precise accent, which fits in with the predominantly British actors playing Russians. However, not all are British and there are a variety of accents, not that it detracts all that much. The beautiful, fragile looking Joanna Pacula has a Polish accent, but she is very effective in this, her first English language film.Although "Gorky Park" was near the end of Lee Marvin's career, this was the sort of role he had perfected by this stage; worldly, charming and ruthless. It's hard to believe this good-looking movie is over 20 years old. With a script by Dennis Potter, an innovative score by James Horner, and just about the perfect cast, it still has a lot going for it.