*. Shamelessly derivative, panned by critics, and the product of a long, tortured production that saw the director of photography and then director fired as the actors made up the script as they went along, it’s easy to mock Tango & Cash today. And looking online I don’t see where it’s grown in many people’s estimation in the last thirty-plus years. But to put my cards on the table right away, I have to confess Tango & Cash is a guilty pleasure. And no apologies: I really like it, and have since I first saw it on its initial release.
*. As the name would lead you to expect, this is a buddy cop movie with lots of comic action, very much looking to “cash” in on the success of that genre at the time (the Lethal Weapon movies being the prime example). The two L.A. cops in question here are Ray Tango (Sylvester Stallone), who is a stylish “Armani with a badge,” and Gabe Cash (Kurt Russell), an East Side good ol’ boy who favours jeans and cowboy boots. They are so good at busting bad guys that they’ve driven L.A. crime king Yves Perret (Jack Palance) to come up with a devious plan to frame them both as crooked cops and send them to prison, where they’ll be safely out of the way. They then escape from prison and go after Perret.

*. That’s the set-up, and to be honest there isn’t much to the plot except the set-up. That isn’t to say nothing much happens, because a lot does, but just that none of it adds up. We whiz from one thing to the next with little attempt at having it make any sense. The police get news that there’s a big drug deal going down and Tango and Cash both head off to bust it . . . separately and with no back-up. After they’re convicted and supposedly sent to a Club Fed minimum security prison they somehow end up in a carceral black site where no one can locate them. Questions pop up faster than you can say “Huh?” Like when did Perret and his gang kidnap Tango’s sister? And why? And why did the bad guys rig their lair to explode? Did they know Tango and Cash were going to find them, and that they’d wipe out everyone who stood in their way?
*. The answer to all of these questions and more is simply that this is what the plot demands and so it happens. Plus, as I noted off the top, the script was always a work in progress, along with everything else about the production. According to one crew member: “This was the worst-organized, most poorly prepared film I’ve ever been on in my life. From the first day we started, no one knew what the hell anyone was doing.”

*. The chaos was exacerbated by a strange mismatch with director Andre Konchalovsky, who I would have never figured as particularly suited for the material. He apparently had creative difficulties with the producers, not wanting the film to be quite so slapstick. After he left he was replaced by Albert Magnoli and Peter MacDonald, but Konchalovsky himself would say that Stallone was effectively producer, director and writer, as well as star at that point.
*. How did a movie this big a mess not fall apart completely? I guess Stallone deserves some credit. And the fact that as ridiculous as it all plays, you don’t really care because you’re not here to enjoy a well-made plot anyway. Meanwhile, it milks a cast stacked with some of the most veteran character actors in Hollywood at the time and lets them do their thing. Now think back to what that crew member said about nobody knowing what anyone was doing. Normally that would be a recipe for disaster, but with this bunch they didn’t have to worry.

*. Jack Palance hams it up shamelessly as the bad guy, a stereotypical Bond villain who’s into heavy breathing and pet gerbils. Teri Hatcher is Tango’s sister, an ’80s babe with big hair and an aerobicized body. James Hong and Marc Alaimo are the other gang leaders (Chinese and Hispanic. for ease of reference). Michael J. Pollard is Q with the gadgets. Clint Howard is the neurotic. Geoffrey Lewis has the face of someone not just having a bad day but a bad life. Brion James is a heavy with a ponytail and a fake Cockney accent that Stallone thought was so funny he expanded the part considerably. I mean, how could they go wrong?
*. There are lots of gratuitous boobies. There are lots of cheesy one-liners that provide beats to go with the action. Stallone actually looks good bespectacled in Armani, while Russell’s hair transforms him into the Lion King. The whole thing winds up in a giant demolition derby/monster truck rally in what looks like a gravel pit. Are you not entertained?
*. I would never call Tango & Cash the best of ’80s action flicks, but I think it could be presented as the epitome of the genre at that time. And even decades later I still thought it was a lot of fun. Do critics still not see anything of value here? Well, as Cash says at the end (and my friends and I used this line endlessly for years), “You got your version, I got the truth.”