Tango & Cash (1989)

So in the 90s TBS (Turner Broadcasting Station), had a show called “Movies for Guys who Like Movies”. Yep, the tough guy movies that I’m sure leaves a good many of today’s audience waking in a cold sweat and glad that they aren’t party to that sort of content anymore. Let’s just say today’s TBS audience with Seinfeld, Friends, and Big Bang Theory maybe doesn’t stick around to chomp on their stogies, pop open a Budweiser with their teeth, or gather around the Poker table in the kitchen while “Lethal Weapon” or “Road House” is on the television for the 100th time. Well, I couldn’t think of any movie more fit for that old timeslot on tough guy TBS than <b>Tango & Cash</b>. I mean Kurt Russell in his jeans and boots with a laser scope on his gun while taking the car of some poor guy with his sacks of groceries  in a parking garage and chasing after one of kingpin Palance’s hired guns, knocking both doors off causing crashes that eventually lead to capturing the hitman (in a big truck). Prior to the parking garage, Kurt chases after this guy after both leap out a big picture window off the ground onto the asphalt, seemingly without injury. Kurt and Stallone, being sent to prison after a ridiculous setup involving a murdered Fed agent by dirty cops through an arrangement by Palance (an audio specialist pieces together a tape that causes Kurt and Stallone to be implicated through a proposed confession, a Fed leads a task force that charges them, Brion James’ henchman leads the two cops to the location to be setup), go through this elaborate escape where they must eventually leap from a tall building, grab hold to an electrical wire, using a belt to slide to the ground. And while they are doing that, electrical sparks fire off as the rain pours down. Not to mention, prior to that Stallone and Kurt must fend off criminals in general population and suffer some real jolts while chained and dripped into water while Brion James dips a runaway sparking electrical wire to electrocute them! And at the end, Kurt and Stallone are inside this mega SUV that has canons on each side that fire off rounds while multiple Monster trucks and construction equipment pursue them inside this insane fortified compound with what appears to be a dirt track maze. Explosions go off, auto destruct systems blow up big buildings, grenades dropped in pants blow up dudes, bodies fly through windows, and Kurt and Stallone must try to figure out what mirror Palance is hidden behind while holding Teri Hatcher hostage.

This has Stallone against Maniac Cop’s own Z’Dar, Russell getting a back massage from Hatcher with Stallone believing something else is going on, Russell conceals his identity from cops with a little help from wardrobe in the dancer dressing room in a club, Stallone making sure Clint Howard’s “Slinky” shuts up, and lots of tit for tat zingers parsed between the two stars. To put into perspective, in the showers of the prison Kurt and Stallone poke fun at each other’s penis size. But Kurt has swagger and charisma for days and Stallone’s lighthearted side comes out more in this film. I think Kurt brings that out of him. This doesn’t have a serious bone in its body and the tone is action movie fluff.