A Running Duck, debut novel by award-winning American crime writer Paula Gosling, was originally published in 1974 and later received two major film adaptation. The first one, 1986 action thriller Cobra, while not being particularly good, turned out to provide one of the most iconic roles in the career of Sylvester Stallone. A decade later another adaptation, directed by Adam Sipes under title Fair Game, turned into massive box office and critical flop, becoming almost instantly forgotten.
The nominal protagonist, played by Cindy Crawford, is Kate McQuean, Miami lawyer who gets grazed by a bullet while jogging. Routine police investigation is given to detective Max Kirkpatrick (played by William Baldwin) who soon learns that the whole situation is much more complicated and dangerous after he witnesses Kate surviving spectacular assassination attempt. Max is now given the task of protecting Kate who is completely baffled, because she practices civil war and it seems unlikely that would get involved with organised crime. She is, actually, mistaken, because one of her clients is divorcing Emilio Juantorena (played by Miguel Sandoval), Cuban businessman who happens to own huge freighter anchored off Florida coast. Kate tried to seize the ship as the part of business proceedings, but the ship is actually a base for Colonel Ilya Pavel Kazak (played by Steven Berkoff), former leader of elite team of KGB operatives who are now using the ship to intercept and manipulate banking transaction via undersea cable. Kazak is determined to take Kate out and uses huge financial resources, state-of-the-art high tech gadgetry, computer networks and his team’s deadly skills to track the woman down. Max and Kate nevertheless survive additional assassination attempts and realise that they have to hide and plan their next move and, during their ordeal, they also discover that they are attracted to each other.
Whether someone could find Fair Game watchable or not mostly depends on whether Cobra was watched beforehand or not. Stallone’s film, with all of its shortcomings (and there are plenty), looks like a masterpiece compared to this. This is somewhat surprising, because Fair Game was produced by Joel Silver, known for legendary action classics of 1980s. Here he employed his style of action cinema, based on high budget which is shoved in spectacular action scenes featuring plenty of automatic weapon fire, pyrotechnics, hand-to-hand combat and car chases. Unfortunately, Silver forgot one of the most important ingredients for good action film – script that gives characters audience would care about. Charlie Fletcher, who would later mostly work on British television, doesn’t deliver that with his script. Characters are cliched, one-dimensional and even their one-liners sound generic. Furthermore, lack of clear ideological message, which had given some sort of coherence to Cobra, makes Fair Game even more generic and forgettable. Uninspired direction by Adam Sipes makes things even worse, making all stunt work and pyrotechnics look cheap. But the most notable flaw in the film is terrible miscasting of supermodel Cindy Crawford in the main female role, which was her feature film debut and supposed to pave the way for future stardom. To say that Crawford’s acting abilities left much to be desired is an understatement. Unlike Cobra, where fashion model Brigitte Nielsen happened to play fashion model, she is given insurmountable task of trying to portray a lawyer. Sipes and Silver try to compensate that by having her war skimpy clothes, her character taking shower in most inopportune times and even with a steamy sex scene during which she appears topless. Despite Crawford being one of the greatest global sex symbols at the time, that scene didn’t have any impact, and that might give you an idea of Sipes’ inept direction. Complete lack of chemistry with William Baldwin, who delivers one of the most underwhelming performances of his career, didn’t help either. Even great character actor Steven Berkoff goes over the top playing the villain, turning Fair Game into unintentional parody of itself. Jeanette Goldstein as Kazak’s henchwoman Rosa is the only part of cast that does solid job, but her efforts weren’t enough to save Fair Game from miserable failure at the box office, being savaged by critics and sinking into well-deserved oblivion.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
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