Blu Ray Review: Target (1985)

Kino Lorber has released, on blu ray, this Arthur Penn 80s actioner featuring Gene Hackman as a former CIA operative whose wife is kidnapped, which forces him back into action. This means he has to reveal is past to his son (Matt Dillon) who insists on helping him.

The narrative and scenes are typically far fetched, which is typical for this type of movie, but director Penn does a brilliant job of maintaining the narrative and staging the action sequences, while the performances by Hackman and Dillon are top notch. There are many layers, from the relationship between the two central characters, to the narrative's mystery, and finally the action is is stragetically placed and helps to both enhance and inform the story. The film was shot on location in Paris, France; Berlin and Hamburg, Germany; Dallas, and Corpus Christie, Texas.

This was Arthur Penn's first film since the unsucessful Four Friends (1981) and was a box office disappointment, earning $9 million against a $12 million budget. Hackman was reunited with Penn who had directed him in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Night Movies (1975). Target was the last film distributed by Warner Bros. in a distribution deal they had with CBS at the time.

Kino's blu ray also features an audio commentary by entertainment journalists Brian Reesman and Max Evry.

It is available at this link: TARGET