Having retired from the CIA a few years earlier "Sam Boyd" (Gene Hackman) is asked to come back temporarily to handle a trade between the Soviet Union and United States. Essentially, the Soviet Union wants one of its spies by the name of "Pyotr Ivanovich Grushenko" (Mikhail Baryshnikov) along with $2 million in cash in exchange for an American spy in its custody named "Benjamin Sobel" (Bob Sherman). At first, everything seems normal to Sam, however, during the actual exchange in Berlin he notices that the prisoner he is about to receive is the same man he saw at an airport prior to leaving for Europe. This causes him to suddenly abort the mission which results in both him and Grushenko now being hunted by the CIA and the KGB for two completely different reasons. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an interesting spy caper which suffered somewhat from a couple of rather slow scenes and an abrupt ending which left more questions than answers. Likewise, although both Gene Hackman and Mikhail Baryshnikov performed well enough the relationship between them seemed unnecessarily awkward at times. Be that as it may, although I thought that this film could have been better, it was good enough for the time spent and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.
Review of Company Business
