- Company Business
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Company Business 
Directed by Nicholas Meyer Produced by Steven-Charles Jaffe Written by Nicholas Meyer Starring Gene Hackman
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Kurtwood Smith
Terry O'Quinn
Daniel von Bargen
Géraldine DanonMusic by Michael Kamen Cinematography Gerry Fisher Editing by Ronald Roose Distributed by MGM Release date(s) September 6, 1991 Running time 99 min. Country United States Language English Company Business is a 1991 spy film, written and directed by Nicholas Meyer and starring Gene Hackman and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Contents
Plot
The film follows the exploits of Sam Boyd (Gene Hackman), a former operative for the CIA who is reactivated to escort Pyotr Ivanovich Grushenko (Mikhail Baryshnikov), a captured KGB mole, to a prisoner exchange in recently reunited Berlin. The exchange is actually a cover for a CIA plot to use drug cartel money to buy back Benjamin Sobel (Bob Sherman), a U-2 pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union during the 1960s. The exchange goes wrong after Boyd recognizes the supposedly imprisoned Sobel as a man he saw two days before at Dulles Airport, and is subsequently told by Grushenko that it really is Sobel, who is now a KGB agent.
The two agents are forced to go on the run from both Boyd's own Company superiors (Kurtwood Smith and Terry O'Quinn) and the head of the KGB (Oleg Rudnik), who all wish to see the exchange completed for reasons that are both obvious and not so obvious. Their only hope may lie in Natasha Grimaud (Géraldine Danon), a mysterious French beauty from Grushenko's past.
Title
The title comes from the depiction in the movie of the word “company” as meaning the CIA, so “company business” means operations not to be revealed to anyone outside the CIA. The working title was “Dinosaurs” and the scene relating to this term was left in the movie, a restaurant scene in which the young lady calls the two main characters “dinosaurs” meaning that CIA and KGB agents are no longer needed in the post cold war world. As if to emphasize this the scene features a huge dinosaur skeleton hanging from the ceiling.
Cast
- Gene Hackman as Sam Boyd
- Mikhail Baryshnikov as Pyotr Ivanovich Grushenko
- Kurtwood Smith as Elliot Jaffe
- Terry O'Quinn as Colonel Pierce Grissom
- Daniel von Bargen as Mike Flinn
- Oleg Rudnik as Colonel Grigori Golitsin
- Géraldine Danon as Natasha Grimaud
- Nadim Sawalha as Faisal
- Michael Tomlinson as Dick Maxfield
- Howard McGillin as Bruce Wilson
- Louis Eppolito as Paco Gonzalez
- Toby Eckholt as Nerdy Young Man
- Elsa O'Toole as Receptionist Maxine Gray Cosmetics
- Kate Harper as Secretary
- Shane Rimmer as Chairman, Maxine Gray Cosmetics
Reception
Company Business was met with mixed reviews.[1]
Vincent Canby of the The New York Times gave the film a luke-warm review, stating, "Mr. Hackman, who has played this role before, and Mr. Baryshnikov, who hasn't, are both sturdy if a little tired. Under the direction of Mr. Meyer, who also wrote the screenplay, the film makes sense without ever being surprising."[2]
References
- ^ "Company Business". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/company_business/. Retrieved 2011-10-09.
- ^ Vincent Canby. "Company Business (1991)". New York Times, April 25, 1992.
External links
- Company Business at the Internet Movie Database
- Company Business at the TCM Movie Database
- Company Business at AllRovi
- Company Business at Rotten Tomatoes
Films directed by Nicholas Meyer 1970s Time After Time (1979)1980s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) · The Day After (1983) · Volunteers (1985) · The Deceivers (1988)1990s Categories:- English-language films
- Films directed by Nicholas Meyer
- Screenplays by Nicholas Meyer
- Cold War films
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