Gorky Park (Michael Apted, 1983)
Doing Business In Moscow Can Be Murder.
Three corpses are found buried in the snow in -hey! - Gorky Park. Militia agent Renko (William Hurt) is assigned the case, but no sooner does he arrive at the scene of the grisly burial, the damn KGB turn up and happen to be extremely interested. Renko is suspicious of the KGB's interest in the case, and aims to find out why, and find out the identities of the three mutilated corpses. He teams up with brutish heavyweight William Kirwill (Brian Dennehy), a cop from America who is looking for his brother.
A strong story (Based on a novel by Martin Cruz Smith, with the screenplay by no other than Dennis Potter)! With equally strong direction from Apted makes Gorky Park a great film to watch on many occasions. The only real drawback here is the amount of dodgy accents on show. Hurt is always excellent, and softens his accent to good effect. But the primarily British cast have a variety of dodgy accents! For example, Renko's sidekick is Michael Elphick ('Boonski'), he sports his own London accent. Then there's Alexei Sayle (a Scouser) and Ian Bannen (drunk as usual). Lee Marvin plays an American, so no problems there then. There's also a lovely lady involved called Irina (B-movie superstar Joanna Pacula).
I love this film. It's one I like to watch over and over, mostly because it's so well-made, in a time when it must've been difficult to shoot a film in Moscow. Hurt is always a pleasure to watch. Also, a great moody synth soundtrack by James Horner.
I did go to Gorky park recently, but it was June 2013, so no bodies were buried in the ice :)
