Target

    Target
    1985

    Synopsis

    A Texan with a secret past searches Europe with his son after the KGB kidnaps his wife.

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    Cast

    • Gene HackmanWalter Lloyd
    • Matt DillonChris Lloyd
    • Gayle HunnicuttDonna Lloyd
    • Josef SommerBarney Taber
    • Guy BoydClay
    • Viktoriya FyodorovaLise
    • Herbert BerghofSchroeder
    • Ilona GrübelCarla
    • Jean-Pol DuboisGlasses
    • Ullrich HauptAgent

    Recommendations

    • 80

      The New York Times

      Target is far more accomplished than anything Chris would have seen on television in the 1970's. However, its narrative shape is so familiar and its automobile chases so spectacularly choreographed that the humanity of the characters, carefully established at the start, gets lost -ground down - by the obligatory mechanics of melodrama.
    • 80

      Washington Post

      Target isn't a suspenseful spy movie, but it makes up for its shortcomings with its genuine good- heartedness.
    • 80

      Washington Post

      Target depends on a few sleights of hand, all transparent; so transparent that you quickly forget about what's wrong with the movie and focus on its strengths -- particularly a quirky, adventurous performance by Gene Hackman. [8 Nov 1985, p.C1]
    • 70

      Variety

      Target is a spy thriller that's not only completely understandable and involving throughout, but also continually surprising along the way. It also strangely contains a few scenes of dreadful writing, acting and direction.
    • 70

      Time Out

      Penn's film might seem an altogether ordinary foray into the world of international espionage were it not for his teasing examination of various concepts of 'family', a word much abused throughout to denote not only the Lloyds, but also the several murderous organisations out to destroy them. An uneven film, to be sure, but far more ambitious and intelligent than most spy thrillers.
    • 50

      TV Guide Magazine

      A deadpan satire of the espionage film that explores the accepted logic forming the basis of the genre. Although not as interesting as some of Penn's other genre experiments, TARGET is worth seeing if only for the inspired teaming of Hackman and Dillon.
    • 50

      Los Angeles Times

      Even with Arthur Penn as its director, and ingenious casting, it is, sad to say, mainly for connoisseurs of the car chase, European style
    • 40

      The A.V. Club

      Dillon comes off as a whiny, unlikable brat, the premise's comic potential goes unrealized, and the spy stuff feels familiar and halfhearted. Good as he is, Hackman can't transform the second-rate into a masterpiece.