Times of transition can be quite demanding for the people affected by it. That includes even film makers whose work deals with subject of such transition. One of those was Nicholas Meyer, whose 1991 spy thriller Company Business can be, depending on various criteria, seen as the last Cold War or the first post-Cold War film.
The protagonist, played by Gene Hackman, is Sam Boyd, veteran CIA operative who has retired and decided to offer his skills to private sector and handle industrial espionage. His new career is briefly interrupted when his old bosses re-activate him in order to take part in seemingly routine mission that is going to take place in recently re-united Berlin. He goes to federal prison to get Pyotr Ivanovich Grushenko (played by Mikhail Baryshnikov), former KGB agent convicted of espionage, and bring him to exchange for CIA pilot caught by Soviets and convicted for espionage decades ago. Grushenko, despite leaving prison and returning to his homeland, appears unenthusiastic about the deal and Boyd also begins to share scepticism after learning that the deal involves 2 million US$ borrowed to CIA by Colombian drug cartels. The exchange doesn’t go as planned and Boyd and Grushenko are instead forced to hide in Berlin and figure out what to do next. They are still in possession of money, but they also have to deal with assassins sent by CIA and KGB whose bosses found common interest in permanently silencing their former operatives.
Company Business went into production after the fall of Berlin Wall and collapse of East Bloc, with Soviet Union all but certain to fall apart in very near future. Meyer, who had also written the film, later described in his memoirs that he had to rush production and constantly re-write script in order for the subject to have any hint of relevancy. The race was ultimately lost, because Company Business came to the theatre few weeks after the August Coup when the fate of Soviets and KGB was sealed and the American and world audience already lost any interest. However, even when those unfortunate circumstances are taken into consideration, Company Business represents a huge disappointment. Meyer tried to touch some interesting subjects in the film and speculate how would Cold War veterans and ideological adversaries adapt to Fukuyama’s End of History and triumph of globalist corporate capitalism, mainly by through subplot dealing with once mega-rich Saudi arms dealer (played by Nadim Sawalha) who became impoverished wreck due to various shady clients losing interests in his products. Another theme, quite popular in America at the time, was based on the idea that the Japanese and their corporations were the real winners of the conflict and that they would rule the world. But all that was lost through Meyer’s mostly inept direction, loss of pace (including pointless scenes of protagonists visiting Weimar-era style drag bar in Berlin) and Michael Kamen’s music score that plays at the wrong times. Even worse is constant tonal shift between semi-satirical black comedy and straight spy thriller that tries to function as Berlin Wall is still standing. Gene Hackman is solid in his role although he was, according to Meyer, in constant quarrel with him at the set. Former Russian ballet dancer and Cold War defector Mikhail Baryshnikov is adequate in one of his rare film roles, although he later went on record for hating the film. Those two performances aren’t enough to help with the underwhelming rest of the film, including confusing finale. Meyer would shortly afterwards again deal with end of Cold War, albeit in a symbolic roundabout way, in Undiscovered Country, one of the best film in Star Trek series.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
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