It Takes Two Action Heroes to Tango for Cash

When you look at the IMDB trivia, Wikipedia, or any other source where you get your information on Tango & Cash, you’ll find out that it was a brutal production. Director Andrey Konchalovskiy was fired toward the end of principal photography due to disagreements with producer Jon Peters, but there were also disagreements on the film’s entire tone. If there were problems, I didn’t notice, nor should you, because Tango & Cash rules. Even with major issues happening, sometimes a movie turns out the way it should, and whether the final result was what Konchalovskiy wanted, Tango & Cash is the type of blockbuster to love because we may never see a movie like it again.

Where major box office productions such as The Fast & the Furious adds on more and more big name actors, making the roster twenty deep, Tango & Cash settled for two of the greatest action stars in the history of cinema- Kurt Russell and Sylvester Stallone. The standard hurdle on a project of this nature would be getting the egos set aside. That issue is instantly squashed in the screenplay, with Stallone playing the buttoned up, suit wearing Ray Tango. This allows a long haired Russell to be his free flowing self, playing the cop without much regard for the rules, but having a good time while he does it. It’s not about who’s the cooler guy but about two personalities making a fun action escape.

The plot wasn’t carving any paths of originality, the screenplay written by Randy Feldman most likely had the nuts and bolts down, and the characters came to life through the vessels of Russell and Sly. They are two LAPD officers and give us a glimpse of how they get the job done. The problem in town is a maniacal bad guy named Yves Perret (played by the wild and wonderful Jack Palance). He can’t run his crime syndicate with two top cops around, so he frames them both, landing them both in a maximum security prison. The second half consists of our heroes putting aside their differences to work together, as they break out of their confinement, and take down the baddy with his never ending collection of goons. Explosions happen, one-liners land, punches are thrown, and the legend of Tango & Cash is born.

But in order to understand why Tango & Cash is wrongfully rotten, I think you need to understand where Russell and Stallone were at in their careers. For Russell this was his post John Carpentar years. Films such as The Thing, Escape from New York, and Big Trouble in Little China had put his name on the map for genre films. They also made him one of the coolest actors in Hollywood. For Stallone it was similar, where the vanity projects such as Rocky and Rambo were seemingly in his rearview, and the Oscar-winner was starting to take more risks. Unfortunately for Sly those risks didn’t pay off. His comedic turn in films such as Oscar and in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot were busts. It’s obvious that Stallone quickly realized that what he did in Tango & Cash was where his action skills were better suited.

Tango & Cash is undeniably a movie that aged better with time. It features a supporting cast of character actors that are legends of cinema, from Palance- who chews up every time he’s on screen- Teri Hatcher as the lone love interest, Brion James as the muscle, and the James Hong as a bad guy business partner. It was the 1980s and buddy action-comedies were a constant thing. 48 hours, Lethal Weapon, and Running Scared, all of them following a similar formula, but none of them making two action stars capture their charisma like Tango & Cash. It also features the greatest high-five in the history of cinema…Does Citizen Kane have that? I don’t think so.

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