Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Kirpianuscus first time,I sale it in 1987, under Ceaușescu regime . and, more than the story itself, or the impressive performance of Lee Marvin, fascinating was the manner to reflect the Soviet system. sure, not extraordinary for a Romanian child of that period. but this kind of fascination remains, after decades,almost the same. because the story, dark, seductive, ambiguous, is less convincing today. too dramatic,too many clichés, using a lot of not real realistic pretextes, it seems be only sketch about a regime described in its appearances. only the rich American in Soviet Union with obscure business remains the good motif too see, again, this movie. but it is only the "sin" of Lee Marvin.

JohnHowardReid Like many of its contemporary competitors, the problem with this movie is that it runs too long. In fact, in all it's a needlessly ponderous, heavy-handed and slow-moving mystery thriller. James Horner has supplied a ponderously boom-boom music score, whilst Michael Apted's wearisomely heavy-handed and over-emphatic direction relies heavily on TV-style close-ups. Fortunately, the film is at its best in the action spots. These are well-staged and like the street scenes actually photographed in Helsinki and the movie's one bright character – namely the used car salesman – help to relieve the monotony induced by William Hurt's slowly drawn performance. Lee Marvin is not that much better, nor indeed is Ian Bannen or even the moderately attractive Miss Pacula. At one stage, it looks like we're going to be in for another of these unlikely partnership movies, but this relationship is not developed to any great extent. And maybe I wasn't listening carefully enough, but I thought the motive for the murder unsatisfactorily explained despite all the 128 minutes of talk, talk, talk! Available on an excellent M-G-M DVD.

Brundlefly I've always wanted to see this film but didn't until I watched it on NetFlix in 2010.The main problem with this film is the screenplay - I didn't read the book, but I am guessing the screenplay is very faithful, because it plays like Masterpiece Theatre with a budget.As a result, its a long movie, but I suspect it was much longer as their are some situations and scenes which seem to have had supporting scenes which were cut.There is just no interesting flow to this movie at all, the characters and relationships are very poorly developed, and the actors don't seem to have any significant investment in their characters or motivations either. Its almost like watching a long screen test.Which is too bad - WIlliam Hurt and Brian Denehy are great actors, but could have both been replaced with competent unknowns - it probably would have been a better film, actually, as the viewer wouldn't keep asking themselves 'Why is Hurt acting like a limp noodle?' or 'Was Brian Denehy attached to this project late?'There is no voice coaching in this movie - everyone speaks English - which is fine, since its an American movie - but the actor's individual accents are not coached out - the Russians in this movie mostly speak with British accents, but they vary into other accents as well. No Russian is fine, but at least keep the accents consistent.There are some weird moments in the movie also - like 'how do the police come to know this pristine snow blanket is covering a murder scene"? Or 'Why did William Hurt just profess love to someone he barely knows?' or 'Why is William Hurt completely unconcerned that the man he has come to kill just pulled a pistol out of a drawer and loaded it?' or 'Why did Lee Marvin take that pistol out of the drawer in the first place'?Its obvious stuff like this was taken out of the book, which had explanatory non-dialog text which put it into context, but when transferred to the screen, they forgot that the audience does not have access to that text.An occasional musical interlude of 80's synth pad and drum machine also painfully dates the movie at certain points.Anyways, a real yawner that seemed to try to capitalize on a bestselling book by throwing some budget and talent into a big vat with a book and stirring - but no one really bothered to make a movie here.

secondtake Gorky Park (1983)Wow, this is a clunky movie. First of all, where did William Hurt think he could pull off an English accent? And why (since he's playing a Russian police detective) does he need one? It'll make your skin crawl, once you notice.The twist of a spy movie being shown from the Russian/Soviet side is clever, and the cold winter, the Russian garb, the lousy cars and great architecture, on and on, make for an interesting movie on some level. And the plot, if you can give a hoot, is a convoluted tale of the usual convoluted intrigues with these new Russian winter twists. Three bodies found under the snow have no faces, this we learn in the first minutes. An American seems to be involved, maybe two. Lee Marvin makes an appearance now and then and he has that Lee Marvin presence (thankfully), though this makes Hurt look especially weak. (I usually like Hurt's laid back quality, but it's badly placed here.) So Michael Apted, the director, has some reason for going along with all these casting choices, and he certainly is responsible for the filming (routine) and acting (choppy and at times pathetic) and emphasis on dull lighting, banal camera-work, and functional editing. There are sensations (like faces being eaten away by maggots) and lots of gloomy snowy scenes (which are good), but it's not enough. And the music and sound effects pound in with unusual volume as if to emphasize the lack of real drama in the plot. (It's also ironic that the portion of Tchaikowsky's 1812 Overture used over and over is the French part, not the Russian one. Indicative of the dull wits at play here.)Beyond handing John Hurt badly, a tiny but salient example of the awkward direction is when Hurt finishes looking at a picture (52 minutes in) and then he doesn't just set it down, he turns it around and sets it down so it's right side up for the camera. A few minutes later, a couple of good bit actors scrape snow off the windshield and all the other cars in the lot don't have snow on them. Hmmm. Such is the movie in the plot motivations, as well, with people in dire situations doing improbable things. If logic matters to you.Gorky Park is not a miserable failure, and it has some exciting espionage moments and some convincing acting on the edges, a ravishing but lifeless love interest (played by Joanna Pacula in her breakout role), some glimpses of sables (the animal), but, after all, there are many more interesting movies of this kind, better in every way. And without Hurt's perfectly terrible effort.