I feel like Tango & Cash gets lost in most discussions about classic ‘80s action films. Since it was released in 1989, some people contend that this buddy cop picture has more of a ‘90s feel, while others think it borders on being too campy and weird to fit that traditional mold. The movie is certainly eccentric, but considering everything that happened behind the scenes, it’s just amazing that the thing was released and is still entertaining.
Lieutenant Raymond Tango (Sylvester Stallone) and Lieutenant Gabriel Cash (Kurt Russell) are two of the best law enforcement officers in Los Angeles who share a friendly rivalry of cop dick swinging, but when a crime lord named Yves Perret (Jack Palance) finally grows tired of seeing their meddling up on his wall of televisions, he pulls strings to have the two heroes framed and sent to prison. Now, they’ll have to work together, escape, and avoid their former comrades long enough to stop the bad guys and get a little payback. Classic, simple, hard to mess up, right?
Tango is the rich, sharp-dressed, good-looking cop who plays the stock market and keeps his job for the adrenaline rush, while Cash is more about torn clothes, cowboy boots, an officer who lives in a bad neighborhood and seems to be compensating for something with his arsenal. We are shown nice establishing scenarios to get a feel for both personalities, and Stallone’s is an homage to Jackie Chan’s Police Story (1985). Stallone and Russell work well together as actors, showing some strong chemistry through their physical comedy and clever banter. Even while criticizing each other’s dick sizes and suffering through fart jokes, it isn’t hard to buy them in these roles.
Teri Hatcher of Lois & Clark fame acts as our gorgeous love interest, Katherine, while her connection to the other lawman is left somewhat ambiguous for comedic purposes. She works as a drum-playing dancer at a (not quite strip-) club and assists Cash in avoiding the police, the infamous scene where Russell cross-dresses as a disguise. The cabal of criminals trying to hunt down our heroes who work for Perret are all notable: Brion James (The Fifth Element, Blade Runner), James Hong (Big Trouble in Little China, Chinatown), Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), and Robert Z’Dar (Maniac Cop, Samurai Cop). There are also numerous other easily recognizable character actors with smaller roles in the movie.
“Come on you meat puppet! Who pulls your strings!?”
The movie truly starts when the pair get incarcerated. I love a good prison break and watching them do some off-the-books police work was interesting, putting the pieces together, up until the ending with that weaponized RV from hell that looked like a battlefield version of the A-Team van, even if it winds up more like a prototype Cybertruck. The conclusion is a wild action ride where the boys battle construction equipment before dealing with a hail of bullets and explosions. We throw in a hostage for good measure and it’s almost what I expected, but with a different tone that feels like it was brought in from a different movie. Principal photography began on the film before the team started working on the ending, which might explain why Tango & Cash felt so formulaic up until they got bored right at the end, but there is much more to it than that.
Like any good story, Tango & Cash started as a simpler idea called The Setup, but it was complicated by the studio and everyone else involved. This rollercoaster was spawned by two men who came up with the idea and would later serve as producers on the movie: Jon Peters, the guy everyone remembers for being Barbara Streisand’s hairdresser, and Kevin Smith telling stories about him trying to put a giant spider in the Nicolas Cage Superman movie, and Peter Gruber, a big name in Hollywood who is also part owner of the Golden State Warriors and Dodgers. It sounds like there were a lot of egos on set, and by the end, they barely spoke to each other.
Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky (Uncle Vanya, Runaway Train) was brought aboard, a master of what people would call true cinema, so he made an odd choice for this script. He and Stallone envisioned an intense and raw cop story with some weight, hard-hitting scenes, and likely some more grounded violence, but Peters’ ideas led the story in a more satirical and almost campy direction, which it looked like Stallone decided to embrace. Self-referential lines about Rambo and a “Danish,” apparently a nod to his divorce from Brigitte Nielsen, were among many jokes he and others added into scenes.
“He thinks he’s Rambo.” “Rambo is a pussy.”
Konchalovsky was eventually paid and fired, leading to Albert Magnoli – best known for overseeing Prince’s Purple Rain video – stepping up in the last few weeks, along with Peter MacDonald, the second-unit director. The film’s credits say there was one director, and most sites acknowledge three individuals, but the story goes that editor Stuart Baird and Stallone himself also had to take on directorial duties to make sure the project was finished, and they all may not have been exactly working toward the same goals. To top it all off, Stallone had the original director of photography, Barry Sonnenfeld, fired, supposedly because of how he was being lit in scenes. I guess the man knows how he wants his lights.
Those were just one set of problems. There was also studio interference, and they had been given a strict – nearly impossible – schedule to meet, so much so that it became a focal point of the producers’ lawsuit. The script wasn’t finished and then rewrites occurred throughout shooting, random ideas were thrown around and put in last minute, like how Palance wanted to use his rats and even funded a maze to be built for the film. Palance originally agreed to do the movie based on having multiple scenes acting against Stallone, but those ended up being removed and the actor said he never saw the mega-star. Many people behind the camera said making Tango & Cash was a horrible task, and while Palance seemed in good spirits talking about it, he still said it was “just about the worst experience I’ve had.”
Brion James and Z’Dar were both only supposed to be in a couple of scenes, but their roles were expanded due to how much everyone enjoyed working with them, and in James’ case, a bad British accent that people pretended to like. There were issues with actors from the start, as a rumor suggests they originally wanted Arnold Schwarzenegger for Cash – perhaps why we have that Conan line in the prison – but landed on Patrick Swayze, who dropped out of the film, and Hatcher was a replacement as well. Writer Jeffrey Boam described the process of re-writing the film as awful and didn’t even attach his name to it.
Warner Bros. also made the editing process difficult, and this was after a slew of reshoots and pick-up shots, including completely redoing the opening scene. They were concerned about Tango & Cash’s rating, due to their experience with the movie Cobra, and their demands forced Stuart Baird to re-edit the project fully. Some thought that his involvement saved the film. It was barely finished, hot off the presses just before the release date with several plot points, action scenes, and character deaths dropped or hidden through jump cuts. The movie was edited with an even heavier hand for the European releases. With so many changes and alterations, it’s no surprise that the initial trailers featured extra scenes that didn’t make it into the theatrical cut.
“If you really wanted to stare death in the eye, you should have gotten married.”
The whole ordeal sounded like a mess, and few people seemed to enjoy their time on set. Even the two leads were injured, as Russell tore his hamstring on the first day of shooting, affecting him for the rest of the production, and a fire singed Stallone’s hair during the big action climax. The budget was also a victim, going $20 million over, and some believe knowing this was going to happen is partially why Konchalovsky was fired, so there would be an obvious party to blame. At least it made its production budget back, as the movie also did well on home release, popularized the term “FUBAR,” and it was apparently a big hit in Russia. Stallone even has a sequel idea, but who would want to go through this again?
It seemed like everyone knew this one wasn’t going to be received well. One of the headlines on the newspaper clipping at the end even says, “Ask not what the critics say,” in a hopeful message that viewers will just ignore the reviews. Tango & Cash is an incredibly flawed piece of cinema. It has pacing issues, especially in the courtroom scene, some bad jokes, it jumps between machismo and the two main characters commenting on each other’s genitals, out-of-date language, odd choices for stereotypical licensed songs, and a score that sounds like Beverly Hills Cop leftovers (same composer), before even mentioning the tonal shifts, but it’s also still damn entertaining, has some solid quips, and the actors are all pretending like they had fun. The critics thought it was all a waste of time and talented people, but at least it’s still mildly entertaining all these years later.
