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Target (1985 film)

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Target
Film poster
Directed byArthur Penn
Screenplay byJosé Luis Navarro (as Howard Berk)
Don Petersen
Story byLeonard B. Stern
Produced byDavid Brown
Richard D. Zanuck
Starring
CinematographyJean Tournier
Edited byRichard P. Cirincione
Stephen A. Rotter
Music byMichael Small
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • November 8, 1985 (1985-11-08)
Running time
117 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$12.9 million[1]
Box office$9,023,199 (US/Canada)[2]

Target is a 1985 American mystery thriller film directed by Arthur Penn and starring Matt Dillon and Gene Hackman. It was the last film distributed by Warner Bros. before ending the distribution deal with CBS and shutting down its film production arm.

Plot

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In Dallas, businessman Walter Lloyd receives a call from Paris revealing that his wife Donna, who was working in Europe, has been missing for two days. Walter decide to go to Paris with his college-age son Chris to find her.

At the airport, Chris bumps into backpacker Carla. Walter, on the other hand, bumps into a man with a gun who has Donna's jewelry. A man in glasses then points a gun at them and, trying to kill Walter, shoots the other man before disappearing. Walter surreptitiously scoops the dead man's gun up.

At the hotel in Paris, while Chris sleeps, Walter enters the American embassy and talks to its director, an old friend named Barney Taber, that Donna has been kidnapped. Walter regroups with Chris at the hotel restaurant, reveals that Donna has been kidnapped, and tells him what happened at the airport. Walter then leaves the hotel, telling Chris to stay there. Chris follows him, and saves his life when a car shoots at Walter. They escape, and Walter confesses that he used to work for the CIA. He was a journalist in France when an agent "tuned into him" at a party. Walter gave up his life as a spy, however, when he met Donna and Chris was born.

Walter and Chris go to Taber and find that another agent, Clay, has been tailing him. Walter decides it is best to visit an old contact of his, German operative Lise.

En route, they spot a tail on them. Walter shakes the tail at high speeds. When the two lay a trap for the tail, they find out that they are being watched by the CIA to make sure that they do not get into trouble. Walter tells an agent to pull the tail off, warning that if he sees him again, he "won't see him again".

After buying clothes, the two leave for Hamburg by train, evading the CIA in the process. At the train station, Walter and Chris see a man approach a similar pair - a young man and his father - yelling "Mendelssohn" to them. The man then grabs a fiddle and begins playing a tune. Walter and Chris leave. On the way out, Chris spots Clara.

At Lise's, she helps the pair get settled. The next day, they decide to meet "The Colonel", Walter's old boss. Chris spots the fiddler, and Walter tears off in the car. They attempt to lose their pursuers, but when they cannot, Walter takes off on foot with Chris presumably driving to meet the Colonel. When Chris spots the assassin who attempted to kill Walter earlier, he sticks around, deciding to rescue his father. Cornered by the undercover agents, Walter jumps off the pier onto a passing ferry. The two agents hum the tune to Walter, and point for him to meet them further up the channel. The eyeglass-wearing assassin considers murdering Walter, but ultimately only kills one of the two agents. Chris later picks Walter up.

At the Colonel's, Walter asks him about the man at the airport - Heinz Henke. They recall "Operation Clean Sweep", where they killed five of six agents. Walter then hums the tune, which turns out to be a Mendelssohn concerto.[a] "Mendelssohn" was the codename of Schroeder, the agent who escaped "Clean Sweep".

Walter later leaves for West Berlin, to the Marie-Louise Pension, leaving Chris in the care of Lise. Chris then leaves on a train to Frankfurt, where he will presumably be safe with a contact of Lise's.

The assassin later visits and tortures the emphysema-ridden Colonel for the Lloyds' location by depriving him of oxygen. Though the Colonel does not give them up, his caretaker does, and the assassin kills both of them.

At the train station, Chris spots Carla, who is supposedly headed to Berlin to stay with friends. Chris decides to surprise her by changing his travel plans to Berlin. There, the two have sex.

The next morning, Chris visits Walter, who sends him out to keep watch at a café near the pension. Their plan is disrupted, however, when Carla appears, saying that she followed him out of jealousy. Chris spots the assassin and moves to signal Walter, but Carla pulls out a gun and forces him to stay put. The assassin enters the apartment, where Walter shoots him dead. Chris slugs Carla and flees with Walter.

That night, after ditching the gun in a river, Walter says goodbye to Chris before heading into East Berlin. Following Walter's instructions, Chris heads to the US Embassy in Berlin. Once through the border in East Berlin, Walter is picked up by a courier who takes him to a farm in the country to meet with Schroeder.

At the farm, Schroeder says that his family, a wife and two children, were murdered by the CIA. Walter denies it, saying that he investigated the killings and that all his people were cleared. Walter convinces Schroeder that there is another party involved. He mentions that the group that has been recently trying to kill him may have "walked in both camps."

Meanwhile, Chris comes back into Taber's custody. At Taber's office, Chris is contacted by Walter, who tells him to head to an abandoned air force base where the CIA used to exchange captured agents with the East. Though he proceeds alone to East Berlin, Taber and Clay catch up with him and Walter. While Walter and Taber talk, Chris enters a hangar nearby and finds Donna bound and wrapped in plastic explosives.

Walter and Clay defuse the bomb. Taber then pulls out a gun and shoots Clay. He is the double agent who betrayed both Walter and Schroeder and was responsible for the death of the latter's family. He forces the Lloyds to kneel, but Walter gets the jump on him when Schroeder reappears. Schroeder then sends Walter, Donna and Chris away before blowing himself and Taber up with the explosives.

Cast

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Production

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The film was Penn's first since the commercial failure Four Friends released in 1981.[1] It was the first film shot by Penn in Europe.[1] Filming took place in Paris, France; Berlin and Hamburg, Germany; Dallas and Corpus Christi, Texas.[3] The film was made for $1.4 million less than its $12.9 million budget.[1][3]

Reception

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The film was released on November 8, 1985 on 1,085 screens in the United States and opened in second place behind Death Wish 3 with a weekend gross of $2,670,522.[4] It grossed a total of $9 million in the United States and Canada.[2]

The film received a mixed response from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, Target holds a rating of 63% from 27 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Target's increasingly implausible plot is offset by a commanding performance from Gene Hackman, reunited with director Arthur Penn."[5]

Notes

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  1. ^ More specifically, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Penn Goes Commercial But Still Keeps Personal Edge On 'Target'". Variety. November 13, 1985. p. 7.
  2. ^ a b Target at Box Office Mojo
  3. ^ a b Target at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
  4. ^ "Fatigued B.O. Not Helped By Bows; 'Wish' Still Leads". Variety. November 13, 1985. p. 3.
  5. ^ "Target". Rotten Tomatoes.
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