Gas up the monster trucks, because Tango & Cash is the Greatest Movie EVER!
Click on the movie poster or the title above to download our review of the film,
featuring guest hosts Daryl and Gerald of AnimeWorldOrder and Guy Woodruff of DEEP HURTING.
Review in a Nutshell: Mere words fail to describe how truly bonkers this film really is. Tango & Cash was made in the Eighties; no further explanation is required.
This movie contains:
Marion Cobretti?
Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.
Kurt Russell, Master of Disguise.
Drum Solo!
The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast 
Haven’t heard this podcast yet – but YEAH, BABY!
TANGO AND CASH is The Greatest Movie Ever – and the only movie I’ve liked Stallone in!
Oh yeah… Pre-Lois and Clark Teri Hatcher… Much love for this film. *chuckle
“Rambo was a pussy”
Best description of Robert Z’Dar: “I loved you in Conan The Barbarian!”
Also, Jack Palance. That’s all I’m saying.
God I love this movie. It’s not a good movie by any means, it’s the kind of thing the Razzies were invented for, but it’s just so damn entertaining that I can’t help loving it. I can easily believe that the script was unfinished and half the time the actors are just making it up as they went along.
I do think everyone was off in comparing T&C to The Expendables though. To illustrate why, here’s a short review of The Expendables I posted a few places after it first came out….
“I really wanted to love The Expendables, despite the lukewarm response from critics I went into it with high hopes. Stallone attempting to do a Eighties style action movie? Sign me up! But the movie falls flat in the most important area, the fight scenes.
It’s a complaint I’ve had far to many times over the last several years with American movies, the fight scenes all seem to have been choreographed in the dark, by the lowest possible bidder, and edited together by someone who hates epileptics.
The fight between Jet Li and Lundgren? Can’t tell what’s going on. The fight between Stallone and Austin? Can’t tell what’s going on. Car chase in broad daylight between Stallone and Lundgren? Can’t tell what’s going on.
There is a fight between Jason Statham and a bunch of jocks that takes place in the middle of the day, in the middle of a basketball court…and you can’t tell what’s going on.
It has to be said that part of the problem is that most of these guys aren’t able to move as well as they used to. Statham is the most fit and gets the most fight time, and what you see of his fights is impressive…what you can see of them.
The acting is sometimes painful to watch, Jet Li in particular is given silly dialog and looks bored saying it. Mikey Rourke has a impressive “Quint on the boat” moment and David Zayas takes his role as the General chafing under the control of Eric Roberts seriously. But when you have a film with Stallone, Eric Roberts, and Steve Austin, and your most entertaining performances are turned in by Jason Statham and Dolph Lundgren…there’s a serious problem.”
I still stand by that review. Whatever T&C other sins, when it showed a fight scene you could actually see the fight. Even beyond that though, everyone in T&C looks like they’re having fun. There’s a real sense of, “Hey, we’re making a silly movie! Bring on the strippers!” Where as in The Expendables it’s more like, “Shit, my back hurts. Gimme my lines and my paycheck.”
Paul I think you need to lay off on your obsession that every strong male friendship or well dressed man implies homo-eroticism.
do you like the yaoi
Tango and Cash has a special place in my heart since it was the movie I took a girl out to watch on our first date…. In less than two weeks we are taking a 20th wedding anniversary cruise to the Carribian Islands. That is the power of Stallone and Russell…
How could you guys forget to mention the Love Theme from Tango and Cash?
Bad English’s Best of What I Got. It’s so cheesetastic. But I’ve always wanted to know, just who was getting The Best?
Teri Hatcher? The Bad Guys? Or is that song a display of devotion from Tango to Cash or vice versa?
Discuss
Hilarious review, you guys – well worth listening to! I’m shocked to hear there are so many people out there who dislike TANGO & CASH – it’s an insanely over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek action-adventure that isn’t afraid to play with “heroic” expectations (the two leads plea-bargain rather than fight the frame-up in court, Cash eludes capture by dressing up in drag, Tango is a Reagan-Era Yuppie Cop).
The biggest surprise is that Andrei Konchalovsky, a Soviet Emigre director whose other American output consists mainly of filmed theatre pieces or art films (even RUNAWAY TRAIN is as much an existential tract as action movie) would have agreed to do T&C in the first place – even if he was replaced by the director of PURPLE RAIN midway through shooting!
Apparently, Andrei Konchalovsky left because he wanted to do a more serious piece and kept butting heads with the producer, Jon Peters (of Caddyshack I&II, Batman, Wild Wild West, etc…).
Firest, I heard that on the podcast – but if that’s the case, WTF did he agree to do a buddy-cop movie starring Summer Blockbuster star Sly Stallone and cult action favorite Kurt Russell, for the producer of the CADDYSHACK movies and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, in the first place? Did his agent convince him he “needed” to do a dumb action movie at this point in his career (kind of how Lexi Alexander did when she agreed to direct PUNISHER: WAR ZONE), and he convinced himself he could put his personal stamp on it anyway?
T&C was made only a few years after Runaway Train, so my guess is that Konchalovsky intended to do something similar.
Stallone and Russell are both excellent dramatic actors as well as action stars, and Peters also produced films like Rain Man and The Color Purple, so Konchalovsky might have not understood what he was getting into.
Firest – in the late Eighties Stallone was largely a joke as an actor. I remember this comic who used mock Stallone’s mushmouthed way of speaking by saying “You think the numbers on his movies relate to the words he actually uses in it? ROCKY 3, RAMBO 2….”
Most films outside of the ROCKY and RAMBO franchises he did back then, which he meant to showcase his range, were huge failure both commercially and critically – F.I.S.T., PARADISE ALLEY, NIGHTHAWKS, RHINESTONE, STAYING ALIVE (which he directed, abominably), and OVER THE TOP. (I’ve seen most of these movies, to my sorrow.) His only non-franchise financial successes were COBRA (which I kind of liked, actually) and LOCK UP – both of which got REALLY negative reviews.
Kurt Russell was a well-regarded actor as well as credible action star – and then as now, it was a mystery why his career didn’t catch fire. I suppose I’d believe that Konchalovsky might have thought he’d get to do something more like RUNAWAY TRAIN if Russell had been the actor he’d originally had, and Stallone was imposed on him by Peters – but from what I’ve heard of the backstage goings-on, that wasn’t the case.
Still arguably one of the greatest films ever made.