‘Detective Cash assaulted me. He put a chair on my chest and sat on it…’
How many action movie cliches is it possible to squeeze into one film? Running away from an exploding building? A villain with a dodgy British accent? A henchman suffering a brutal death at the hands of a protagonist followed by a cheesy one liner? Heck, even a gun battle in a hall of mirrors. Tango & Cash does all of them, but it does it with such glee that it’s nigh on impossible not to get caught up in the whole thing…
Raymond Tango (Sylvester Stallone) is a maverick who doesn’t take orders from anyone but himself. Gabriel Cash (Kurt Russell) is also a maverick who doesn’t take orders from anyone but himself but he dresses slightly differently. Together they form Tango & Cash, a slight variation on the usual buddy cop formula in as much as instead of being an odd couple they are in fact pretty much identical. There are other characters in this movie. Most notably Jack Palance’s ludicrous villain Yves Perret and Teri Hatcher’s literally only-there-to-look-hot Katherine Tango, but if we are being honest, this is all about Stallone and Russell. Without two such heavyweights in the leading roles, this film really would be a piece of shit.
And why, you ask? Well the script is truly, truly terrible. Both in terms of dialogue and plot. Nothing here makes sense. Not the antagonists bizarre plan to thwart Tango & Cash, nor his execution of that plan. The characters are thinly drawn. The cliches are applied liberally. It’s all very uninspired. Luckily, what isn’t uninspired is the leading men. Whilst Stallone and Russell were both approaching the end of their 80s prime at this point, there is no denying their star power, nor their chemistry. Stallone in particular is the master of taking silly material super seriously, something that is vital when considering the enjoyment of an 80s action movie. If it’s too knowing, if there are too many nods and winks to the camera, the whole thing loses its sparkle.
Tango & Cash is far from being a classic, but it gives you absolutely everything that you would expect from an 80s action movie, and in truth, that is all I ever wanted.