Movie review: ‘Target’

FloridaGator80

In the espionage genre of films, a tight, well-acted thriller is difficult to beat and even more difficult to accomplish. A three-time Oscar nominee, director Arthur Penn managed to do it with style and verve when he brought “Target” to the big screen in 1985. It stars A-list actor Gene Hackman and somewhat near-A-list Matt Dillon. It’s neither as famous as or as storied as Penn’s iconic “Bonnie and Clyde” (one of his nominations), but it actually comes close because of its quality and watchability. You’ll be hard-pressed to find better in the espionage field, unless it’s Robert Redford in “Three Days of the Condor” (click here to read my review). Do yourself a favor and find a way to check out “Target.”

‘Target’
(1985; 117 minutes; rated R; directed by Arthur Penn and starring Gene Hackman, Matt Dillon and Josef Sommer)

WHEN YOUR PAST COMES BACK TO HAUNT YOU

(NOTE: I expanded this review with some more opinion, additional trivia and the updating of links on March 25, 2017. I again expanded the review on Sept. 8, 2020. I again expanded the review on Nov. 22, 2024. I updated the review on Feb. 27, 2025, noting the death of Gene Hackman.)

Director Arthur Penn hooked up with Gene Hackman for the third time in the espionage thriller “Target” in 1985, after the first with “Bonnie and Clyde” in 1967 and “Night Moves” in 1975. It’s a wonderful pairing of two of Hollywood’s most accomplished at their respective professions.

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Hackman does his usual outstanding turn as “Walter Lloyd.” From his first scene to the last, Hackman never looks like he flags even for a second throughout the film. Matt Dillon is here in his first film after his iconic turn in the coming-of-age minor classic “The Flamingo Kid” (click here to read my review) the year before and plays Hackman’s son “Chris Lloyd” in a surprisingly deep effort.

As to the film’s plot, Hackman’s having trouble at home. He is alienated from his son; and his wife’s headed off to Europe for a solo vacation (he refuses to go). After the characters’ baseline is set, Hackman gets a call from Paris saying that his wife is missing and has left her tour group. Jumping a flight to Paris with Dillon in tow, Hackman then sets out on a journey to find and bring home his wife.

The big surprise, especially for Dillon, is that Hackman isn’t who everyone back home believes: A conservative, quiet lumberyard owner who even “warms up the car” in the summer. He is actually former CIA agent “Duncan ‘Duke’ Potter” who retired and relocated after working for “the Outfit” in Europe as a very young man (it’s actually “The Company” in real life jargon, but this is, after all, a movie). He became scared for himself, his wife and his son and left the CIA.

In the film, they all have new names (Dillon was so young when they were relocated to Dallas that he had never heard his birth name of “Derek Potter”) and the wife has now been kidnapped in a plot to force Hackman to return to Europe to face an old foe.

The plot then winds around Europe as Hackman tries to make contact with the kidnappers. He is in touch with an old CIA buddy, played superbly by Josef Sommer, but really doesn’t trust anyone. The film moves forward efficiently (although nearly two hours in length, it doesn’t drag) and plays out to a very conclusive end.

Here’s my look at some of the principal cast:

  • A two-time Oscar winner and three-time nominee (not for this one) and three-time winner and five-time nominee for Golden Globes, Hackman is Hackman here: He’s so immersed in the role that you KNOW that he’s a former spy. He works with such apparent ease that it’s all too easy to forget just how difficult it is to accomplish the smoothness he projects in every scene. I really best like his work in “The French Connection” (click here for my review) that earned him his first Oscar and first Globe and he, naturally, was simply tremendous for his second Oscar and another Globe with Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven.” As you would expect, he’s great, too, in “Runaway Jury” (click here for my review) as well as his other nominated films “Bonnie and Clyde,” “I Never Sang for My Father” and “Mississippi Burning.” I’d say he was equal to his best work as the high school basketball coach in “Hoosiers” (click here to read my review) and was the cruel ruler of a western town in “The Quick and the Dead” with Sharon Stone, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio (click here to read my review). As for war films, he played a Polish commander in the big-cast classic “A Bridge Too Far” (click here to read my review). Hackman, who was a native of California, was found dead at him home in New Mexico in February 2025 at the age of 95.
  • An Oscar nominee and Golden Globe nominee (not for this one), Dillon does a good job as the initially brash, rebellious son who turns into Hackman’s sidekick in their adventures across Europe. Dillon easily conveys the hot-headedness of “Chris” and does a good job in his reaction to learning the family secrets. Dillon earned both nominations for “Crash” and he’s also been in the tepid reboot of “Going in Style” (click here to read my review) as well as the steamy “Wild Things” and “You, Me and Dupree.” I liked him best after “Target” as the sleazy private detective who woos Cameron Diaz in “There’s Something About Mary.”
  • Sommer, who played the bad-guy cop in “Witness” with Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis the same year as “Target,” has a meaty but small role as “Barney Taber” that he makes the most of, but we needed to see more of him. He’s had a somewhat prolific career of 100 credits in movies and TV over four decades, but hasn’t had one since 2010. He was also solid in “The Family Man” (click here to read my review). He also was in “Absence of Malice,” “Sophie’s Choice,” “The Mighty Ducks” and “Patch Adams.” Sommer was the prosecutor who lets the killer go free in Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” (click here to read my review).
  • The best supporting actor at work here is Herbert Berghof, who plays “Schroeder.” He’s the East German spymaster who is behind the whole plot and is seeking revenge on Hackman. Berghof, like Hackman, just oozes his character – he’s bent on revenge and you believe every ounce of his emotion. Berghof was in “Cleopatra” and “Harry and Tonto” and “Target” was his last credit before his death at 81 of heart failure in 1990.
  • Two other supporting actors are worthy of note: Gayle Hunnicutt, who plays Hackman’s wife “Donna,” and Viktoriya Fyodorova, who plays “Lise,” a former love interest of Hackman’s and a member of the espionage game herself. Both have enough time onscreen to develop their characters and make an impression on the audience, but far too little to have a big impact. However, the two make sure their characters don’t get lost in the wake of Hackman-Dillon. Hunnicutt’s numerous TV credits include “The Love Boat,” thereby cementing her legacy (I’m not kidding; I truly enjoy “The Love Boat” – click here for my look at that most iconic and kitschy series). She also did “Taxi” and “Fantasy Island.” Fyodorova had only 20 credits over three decades – mostly in Russian cinema – and died in 2012 at 66 of lung cancer. Hunnicutt died at 80 in 2023.

In their short time together onscreen, Hackman and Berghof show just how good two actors can accomplish their craft. Berghof is especially solid as the outraged victim of a tragedy nearly a generation earlier.

I won’t spoil it too much, but there is a scene with Hackman, Sommer and Berghof, but it isn’t structured so that all three can showcase their talents with interaction together for more than a few moments. Well, too bad. It would have been outstanding if it had been framed differently, but I can see how it would have been impossible to accomplish.

Penn was also nominated for “The Miracle Worker” and “Alice’s Restaurant” and he only went arm’s reach in violence in this one, compared to the breakthrough of mayhem he brought with “Bonnie and Clyde.” Penn also directed Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando in “The Missouri Breaks” and also did “Little Big Man” with Dustin Hoffman and Faye Dunaway. Penn’s career as a director began on with a television show in 1953 and he had 28 credits for direction before he died of congestive heart failure in 2010 on the day after his 88th birthday.

“Target” appears to take the “tradecraft” of spies seriously with how Hackman navigates being back in the world of espionage. This isn’t some big-screen spectacular with 007 saving the world, “Target” is the story of a somewhat dysfunctional family that is overwhelmed with new dysfunction by its past. Certainly too old to have benefitted from CGI special effects, “Target” doesn’t need them – it has acting and dialogue for its talented cast.

By the way, you’ll find that the “R” rating for “Target” is certainly not deserved by today’s standard, where it would most assuredly be a “PG-13.” The violence isn’t much; there’s a brief scene of Dillon with a girl in bed; and the crisp dialogue is for the most part clean (there are a few curses here and there – certainly less than what you hear as the mostly bleeped out cacophony of crass stupidity on MTV or the execrable slime shoveled out by the WEtv network).

“Target” was the 91st ranked film of 1985 with $9 million in ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo. The No. 1 film was the now-iconic “Back to the Future” with $210.6 million and it was followed by “Rambo: First Blood Part II” with $150.4 million. I don’t understand how such a quality film as “Target” came in behind some true losers of motion pictures, but, ah well. Here are the other films from 1985 that I’ve reviewed:

Here are some cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Penn had only one acting credit: a 1999 TV show called “BeastMaster.”
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “One of the final films of production house CBS Theatrical Films. The company went defunct the year that this movie was released.”
  • Hackman and Sommer also were in two other films together: “The Chamber” and “Reds.”
  • The novelization of the screenplay was written by Stephen Hunter, who is the author of a variety of novels including “The Master Sniper” and his “Point of Impact” was turned into “Shooter” with Mark Wahlberg.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “One of two 1985 movies starring Matt Dillon first released in 1985. Both had one word titles. The other film was Rebel (1985).”

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