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Target (1985) More at IMDbPro »

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24 reviews in total

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15 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
Interesting plot, average entertainment, with an excellent Hackman performance., 8 November 2004

Author: Richard Brunton (imdb-update@brunton.org.uk) from Edinburgh, Scotland

I'm a huge Gene Hackman fan and I remembered seeing this film many years ago and thinking it was quite cool, and when I saw the title in the paper again, I thought I would find out how right I was.

Well Hackman is once again excellent. He has such a natural and believable way about him in his roles that I find it hard not to be drawn into his character. He's definitely one of those actors who always plays himself, but it doesn't matter as his ability and style just carry it off without a thought. A truly great actor in my mind.

Matt Dillon is also very good, although his younger trademark look of startled deer is ever present.

The plot itself is a good one, in that Hackman plays Dillons father, a boring and very dull man with an equally dull job, in his sons eyes anyway. What quickly transpires is that he is not the speed limit sticking man that his son first thought, he is actually a ex CIA agent.

This change is done very well, with a short set piece in an airport. With the smallest of physical changes, Hackman flips from average father to confident and action ready agent. You can see it in his manner, and it shows his excellent capability as an actor.

The rest of the movie reveals the story as father and son are pulled deeper and deeper into his life, revealing the true extent of his agent activities. His son quickly realises that this is not the father he knew, and quickly grows from off-handedness to total rejection and then to acceptance again.

It is an interesting movie, and the plot is quite good with some interesting action sequences. Where it fails are some of the other actors and the hectic pace of the movie, it seems as though either in filming or editing that crucial parts of the movie have been missed or removed.

Big shame, but it is still good to watch for a Sunday afternoon movie. I think this may kick off my <i>watch every Gene Hackman movie</i> campaign.

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8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Dear old Dad? MY dear old Dad?!, 16 July 2004
Author: Oldsport57 from Quincy, MA

The performances of Matt Dillon and Gene Hackman brought this film right over the top for me.

Dillon's character grows from being an obnoxious teenager, who sees Dad as an un-hip set of car keys with a hand attached to them, through the astonishing realization that Dad just may be "James Bond".

And Gene Hackman brings his blazing talent to the table, unfolding from a middle-aged, pokey, conservative, 35-mile-an-hour, aw-shucks businessman into a multilingual, multitalented super-spook.

The two interact perfectly! As they face dangers and intrigue together in a wild ride across the globe to save Mom, it is a delight to see them discover and appreciate the depths of each others' characters and become friends and partners.

"Saving Mom", was almost irrelevant!

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9 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Misses the bullseye, 24 August 2001
Author: Geofbob from London, England

The concentration on character and family values in Arthur Penn's spy thriller ought to make it a better, more intelligent movie, but somehow it doesn't work. Gene Hackman is an ex-CIA spy who's been "in from the cold" for 15 years. But now his wife has been kidnapped in Paris, and he has to get back into top gear in order to retrieve her. He also has to tell the truth about his past to his 18 year old son (Matt Dillon), who hitherto has thought his dad as much a man of action as Mr Magoo. There are all the contrivances we expect in this genre of film - repeated attempts on Hackman's life; car chases; femmes fatales; CIA agents who might be working for the other side; etc, etc. But little tension is developed, and first the recriminations and then the bonding between Hackman and Dillon simply slow the action down. I found the climax a tad ludicrous, but by that time didn't care much.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Car chases car, boat, person, woolly mammoth, etc., 21 November 2005

Author: Robert J. Maxwell (rmax304823@yahoo.com) from Deming, New Mexico

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The first time I saw this, about ten years ago, I thought it was pretty cool. Zippy car chases, nicely staged, up and down stairs in Hamburg, in and out of passageways, and so forth. Three -- count 'em -- three gorgeous women. Gene Hackman and Matt Dillon, a couple of engaging actors. And it had an interesting premise, too. Young man doesn't get along well with his dad, discovers dad was a CIA spy, develops new respect for him.

But I just saw it again, less distracted by the puzzling plot, and it was something of a disappointment. The women are just as gorgeous, Gene Hackman is as good as he almost always is, and the shenanigans with the cars are as exciting, but the rest seems pedestrian, almost amateurishly done -- from the script to the direction.

I'll give you an example of what I mean. Hackman and Dillon are driving on a crowded road outside of Paris. Hackman is driving slowly and Dillon impatiently urges him to speed it up. Hackman, his eyes on the rear-view mirror, says, "We've got company." Then he shifts into a lower gear and the Peugot leaps ahead. "What are you doin'?" Dillon exclaims. "Seeing how good he is," replies Hackman with a slight smile. There follows a high speed chase with cars twirling around on wet sandy roads, through some kind of quarry, and it ends with Hackman confronting the other driver and telling him to quit following him. The chase is fine. But it's pointless. Why is the car chase in the movie anyway? "Seeing how GOOD he is?" That's the reason these lives are put in danger for five hectic minutes? Not to mention the Peugots? That would be a great motive for a car chase in a kiddy cartoon.

The rest of the plot is almost as weak. Matt Dillon's character is a complete irritation for the first third of the movie. He seems to have nothing but contempt for his father, although Hackman doesn't seem to be guilty of much more than losing the kid's jitterbug bass lure. Dillon is always noodging him, the way Captain Ahab was always noodging Moby Dick. The kid is a dumb, self-indulgent slob and Hackman can never do anything right. Well -- that's okay as a proposition, but it's very poorly delivered, and Dillon's character is turned into a strident stereotype. Furthermore, Dillon himself gives an artless and unconvincing performance in a role that maybe nobody could convincingly enact. When Dillon finds out his father, whom he'd thought to be an ineffective stick-in-the-mud, was a spy, he almost begins to weep as he goes through his lines -- "You've been lying to me all this time." Dillon ought to be elated at discovering his Dad's secret identity.

Another curious incident, among so many curious incidents: the evil guys (and man, do they LOOK evil with their black leather coats and their rimless spectacles as thick as Coke bottle bottoms) have kidnapped Hackman's succulent wife, Gale Hunnicutt, because he has information they want him to spill. So the first thing they do when he steps off the plane is try to massacre him in a drive-by shooting? Did I miss something? Why kill someone you need to wring information from?

I won't go on, I guess. It's still an engaging movie if you're seeing it for the first time because you don't know where it's going to turn next. And the location shooting is interesting too, reminding us that in the middle of a chill wintry drizzle even Paris doesn't look so hot, never mind Hamburg. It has other exciting moments that I haven't mentioned. Identities twist themselves inside out unexpectedly. I don't want to get into that and possibly debase the film's chief virtue.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Target misses the bull's-eye, 8 December 2007

Author: LCShackley from United States

I'm a sucker for espionage movies filmed on location in Europe, so I was positively inclined toward this film, which I had never heard of before it cropped up on cable this week. I'm not sure how I missed it back in 1985, because I'm a Hackman fan and usually like movies of this type.

This is an OK film, but not a great one. The locations are superb, and there are enough car chases to keep guys like me happy. The basic idea of the film (family of man with secret past must pay for his actions) is all right, too, but it plays out in a rather clunky way. (The story, by the way, was written by Leonard Stern, the executive producer of the GET SMART TV show, and the co-inventor of "Mad Libs".)

Hackman is the best part of the picture. Josef Sommer is also good, but is basically playing the same role he played in WITNESS (also in 1985). He could phone in a part like this. What drags this movie down is the thoroughly annoying Matt Dillon subplot. I'm not sure if it's just Dillon the actor that bothers me, or his character. The screenwriters try to turn this film into a family drama, where the father is reconciled to his son while they search for the kidnapped mother. But the son is SO stupid and annoying, that if I were Gene Hackman, I'd let the KGB put Dillon in a cement overcoat and toss him in the Baltic. IMHO, this would have been a better film with Hackman searching by himself (along with his former lover, perhaps, who is a more interesting character than Dillon).

The closing climactic scene drags on WAY too long. The tension is gone long before it's over, and the fade-out shot of the cuddly family is trite. (If you think about it, they're still in a LOT of trouble at that point, probably more than an hour before!) A much better film with a similar plot (and good locations) is the Harrison Ford vehicle FRANTIC. For spy fans, TARGET is worth watching once, but won't bear repeating.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Like 'Frantic' But Not As Good. (minor spoilers), 4 June 2004
Author: Pepper Anne from Orlando, Florida

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The plot of Target is quite reminiscint of Roman Polanski's Frantic which was released three years later. In the latter, Harrison Ford plays a doctor who's wife is kidnapped during their stay in Paris. It had a lot of good action sequences (like Harrison Ford dodging bullets on the roof of an apartment building) and a good, suspenseful story.

In Target, Gene Hackman and Matt Dillon play father and son, Walter and Chris Lloyd. Walter's wife has been kidnapped during her visit to Paris and as both father and son will soon find out, it is related to Walter's former work in the C.I.A., something of which his son was never aware.

The movie spends more time with the father-son bonding than it does in providing a very energetic story. This is because of the relationship between the characters, who don't have much in common. This leads to a lot of interruption in what could be good action to have those father-son moments.

I think that is the downfall to what really could have been a good thriller. There were some good action scenes, especially car chases, but Walter and Chris seem to waste far too much time in this movie even though seem to remark about what an emergency it is to find Mrs. Lloyd and save her from the kidnappers. In 'Frantic,' Harrison Ford's character does a lot of bullet dodging and never seems to quit until he finds out what happened to his wife. In 'Target,' on the other hand, the scenes are often too slow moving despite the ability to be much better, given the motive for kidnapping Walter's wife in the first place.

That's really a shame, too, given the great potential you have with an actor like Gene Hackman, who's proven he can do great things with action films (see The French Connection and Enemy of the State). If this is the kind of movie you're looking for, I'd recommend watching 'Frantic.'

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
One of my all-time faves, 8 December 2006

Author: Bob Stout from Houston, Texas, USA

I can't add too much that hasn't already been said. A 1985 film, the plot should be familiar to anyone with or without basic cable by now. Where this film shines is in the relationships between the characters and the quality of the acting. Mind you, the plot and action aren't shabby, either, despite some comments here to the contrary.

Perhaps this is merely middle-age fantasy - how many middle aged dads (or moms) haven't had the fantasy of showing their sullen kids how cool they once were and could be again if necessary? I was fortunate not to have any sullen kids (or grandkids), but I've been in this guy's place and I recognized the looks on both faces. (OK, I was never a spy or anything so overtly cool, but I did have my moments.) The point is that there come inevitable times in the relationships between kids and parents when the kids suddenly realize that the old folks may have actually been cool before the kids even knew what cool was all about, and that's the heart of this film.

Contrary to some comments, the plot is quite coherent with only a few holes which I won't elaborate. Some of the carping about plot points I've read here must have come from people lacking in either imagination or comprehension. The action is credible both in its pacing and execution. Not Arthur Penn's best film, but this is as much of an actor's film as a director's film.

The acting is uniformly good, but Hackman holds the center of the film. If he weren't completely believable, the whole effort would fall apart. Matt Dillon gives a very good performance as Hackman's son/foil, but isn't in the same league. The usually reliable Josef Sommer gives a surprisingly weak performance - OK, but not up to his usual work. The late Herbert Berghof (husband of Uta Hagen and co-founder with her of the eponymously named HB acting studio) gives a master class in his portrayal of a truly sympathetic, tortured soul - not much screen time, but a real gem. Another standout is Viktoriya Fyodorova, who offers some of the films most poignant scenes as Hackman's love-who-might-have-been, who devotes herself to helping him and his son find his kidnapped wife.

Highly recommended, but it won't really resonate with the kids...

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4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Much To Do About Nothing, 19 January 2007

Author: whpratt1 from United States

Missed seeing this film over the years as I am a big fan of Gene Hackman, (Walter Llyod/Duke Potter),"Absolute Power", who plays the role as the average husband and wife with a son who is not very close to his father at all. Matt Dillon,(Chris Llyod/Derek Potter),"Loverboy", plays the son and Gayle Hunnicutt(Donna Llyod) "Dream Lover", is the wife who tries her very best to get her Walter to become closer to their son Chris. Donna disappears while she is on a tour in a foreign country and then the story gets quite complicated with lots of guns going off and plenty of car chases and great photograph in Germany and France. This film builds you up as you start getting interested and sort of goes down hill real fast. I like Gene Hackman and that is the only reason I decided to finish seeing this film.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Target, 24 November 2007

Author: Scarecrow-88 from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Ex-CIA agent, now operating a hardware business in Dallas, Texas, Walter Lloyd(Gene Hackman) finds that his wife Donna(Gayle Hunnicutt)has been kidnapped during her trip in Paris and must find her. Estranged son Chris(Matt Dillon)insists on joining him as they help keep each other stay alive in the midst of gunmen, working for mysterious sources,trying to kill them. His former partner Taber(Josef Sommer), now the head CIA man in Paris seems only too willing to help an old pal out. Clay(Guy Boyd)is Taber's right hand man trying to find out who would wish to kidnap Donna. The film follows Walter and Chris on their Euro journey often escaping certain peril in some rousing action sequences and near-death escapes. The one responsible for kidnapping Donna might be seeking revenge towards Walter for a CIA operation titled "Operation:Clean Sweep" which led to a family being slaughtered of one Cold War target that got away.

Popcorn espionage thriller following Hackman and Dillon I thought was entertaining even if I didn't believe what the plot was selling for a minute. Syrupy bonding sequences between Hackman and Dillon just don't seem to work. Hackman, always the versatile actor, plays the role of hero with ease. The climax when it's revealed who was really behind the slaughter of a family..the one Hackman's Walter is being held accountable for..doesn't hold up well. I do not think the one responsible for such an act, carried out the way it was, would make himself look so guilty at such an inopportune time. Crackerjack bomb-diffusing sequence at the end is quite suspenseful, though.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Formula but still exciting, 8 December 2006

Author: Jack Reich (jackreich@hotmail.com) from DeKalb, Illinois, United States

OK; it IS a bit trite, but still an edge-of-the-seater nonetheless. Surprises galore to keep your imagination occupied, though thriller buffs will predict most of them. I found that part of the fun: keeping score of how many "surprises" i anticipated. Still, the denouement packs punch and satisfies. Great performances by most of the cast, esp. Hackman, who always has that knack of being 'perfect' for the part, doesn't he? and Damon, very apt in this early role. The art direction is superb, the location shooting very convincing. If you like thrillers/whoodunits you WILL be entertained. I gave it only a 7 because reading Sartre is probably a better use of two hours....

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