"Gorky Park" is based on the novel of the same name by Martin Cruz Smith. It's a flawed attempt, but otherwise excellent film. William Hurt plays the hero, Arkady "Arkasha" Renko, a righteous detective with the Moscow Militia, the Soviet capitol's local police force. His latest case involves three mutilated corpses discovered under a blanket of fresh snow in the woods of Gorky Park. Renko is barely on the scene when he's joined by KGB Col. Pribluda. "That could be you one day", the smiling killer tells Renko. With little doubt that the case "reeks of KGB" involvement, Renko at first seeks a way to dump the case, thinking it a trap laid against him by the KGB as revenge for Renko's earlier attempts to implicate the grinning KGB colonel in a multiple homicide. A dogged persistance won't let him drop the case, and he pursues leads that have nothing to do with the KGB - including a one-time student dissident (Joanna Pacula) whose name is scratched into the skates worn by one of the corpses, and Jack Osborne (Lee Marvin), a wealthy American tycoon with an interest in genuine Russian Sables. Soon, however, Renko finds himself the prey, when a mysterious American, who turns out to be a NYPD Detective (Brian Dennehy), arrives on the scene, convinced that his younger brother may be one of the victims and Renko one of his executioners. Unclear who he has to fear, especially when his men and his witnesses begin dying, and unsure who to trust, Renko goes practically underground, the American Detective his only real ally.
Flawed by a script that ambitiously tries to comprise all of Smith's multi-layered plot, "Park" makes a great go of it. With the help of the late and great Dennis Potter ("the Singing Detective", "Pennies from Heaven"), Michael Apted's superb cast goes a long way to realizing author Smith's vision. There is the amiably amoral Pribluda and Dennehy as the brutish Detective Kerwill. Joanna Paculla will break your heart while Lee Marvin is cheery as the rich American who smoothly reaffirms the Soviets' faith in the evil that is the United States. Hurt's duel of wits with Marvin (Renko wastes little time making the rich American a prime suspect) provides the most tension of the film. Renko tries to elicit Osbourne's response by comparing the murder of the faceless trio with the American's favorite hobby - a hunt for Sable. Their exchanges are key because they highlight Osbourne's amorality and his mastery over Renko and the systemic rot of the Soviet hierarchy. Even minor charachters like Alexi Sayle as Fedor Golodkin and Ian Mcdiarmid as Prof. Andreev are hard to forget. Golodkin is the cheerily slimy smuggler who informs on Pacula's charachter for the KGB while Andreev, a dry academician with no time for police forensics, reluctantly agrees to reconstruct identities of mutilitated corpses. Mcdarmid, for his screen time is also fun, especially when meeting Renko and the detective's high-mindedness for the first time. "I fear that you are not long for this world, my friend", the dry academician tells Renko, evoking the same foreboding Macdarmid displayed as Darth Vader's boss in "Return of the Jedi". I caught a TV cut of the film and the editing was horrible. Don't settle for the Bravo version - get this tape today.
