Movie Review: 'The Package' (1989)

The Package (1989)

Directed by: Andrew Davis

Written by: John Bishop

Starring: Gene Hackman, Tommy Lee Jones, Joanna Cassidy, John Heard, Pam Grier, Dennis Franz


Sgt. Johnny Gallagher: Who the hell knows what is the truth and what is a lie?

On August 25, 1989, Orion Pictures (now a fully-owned subsidiary of Metro Goldwyn Mayer) released The Package, a suspenseful action/political thriller set during the twilight years of the Cold War. Written by John Bishop (Drop Zone) and directed by Andrew Davis (Under Siege, The Fugitive), The Package pits Sgt. Johnny Gallagher (Gene Hackman) against powerful forces who are opposed to a nuclear disarmament treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The Package begins in what to 1989 audiences would have been the near future. Europe is still divided by an Iron Curtain, with Soviet forces still occupying East Germany and a huge American force providing the backbone of NATO's forces in West Germany. After an establishing shot of the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin's Tiergarten informs us that we are in Communist-ruled East Berlin, we see a hapless GI (Kevin Crowley) being arrested by a team of Soviet and East German MPs at his East German girlfriend's apartment.

Davis then cuts away to a chateau near East Berlin, where a group of U.S. and Soviet military and civilian negotiators is holding a summit in advance of a nuclear disarmament treaty between the two superpowers. Outside, in the woods nearby, a team of U.S. Army Special Forces led by Vietnam veteran Sgt. Gallagher provides perimeter security for this classified meeting.

As the official meeting comes to an end, we notice that not all of the participants are thrilled with the idea of nuclear disarmament, and although no one explicitly says "We have to take drastic action to stop this treaty from being signed," there are clues in the exchanges between some of the American and Soviet officers that something is afoot. 

Of course, Sgt. Gallagher knows nothing about a grand conspiracy to maintain the status quo. But he is drawn in when an apparently accidental intrusion by two innocent-looking German backpackers (Diane Timmerman and Charles Mueller) results in the assassination of a U.S. Army general (Joe Greco), his driver, and his aides. Gallagher and his security team respond to the attack, but the assassins kill one of the Green Berets and escape in a speeding getaway car.

Gallagher then has a run-in with Col. Glen Whitacre (John Heard), who insists that the assassination was a terrorist attack. When Gallagher insists that the murder of the general and his staff looked like a well-run military operation, Whitacre scoffs, accusing the NCO of being incompetent.

The seemingly disgraced Sgt. Gallagher is surprised when he is relieved of his security team command and assigned to escort a rebellious GI named Walter Henke (Tommy Lee Jones) back to the U.S. to face court-martial for striking an Air Force officer at a bar in Berlin. On the flight across the Atlantic aboard an Air Force transport, Gallagher is surprised by his "package's" sardonic attitude and Henke's experience in counterinsurgency and special operations.

Sgt. Johnny Gallagher: I think you're going to prison, Walter.

"Walter Henke": You don't know where I'm going.

Nevertheless, all goes well with this seemingly routine assignment until the transport lands at an airport near Washington, DC. Gallagher, whose instructions are to not let his "package" out of his sight, escorts Henke into the men's room - and is knocked unconscious in a fracas between the unruly GI and two Navy sailors. When Gallagher wakes up minutes later, Henke is gone, and so are the two seamen.

I will leave the rest of the plot of The Package for the readers who have not seen it yet to discover on their own. Suffice it to say that this intricately plotted film has its fair share of plot twists that keeps Gallagher, his ex-wife Eileen Gallagher (Joanna Cassidy), and a few other supporting characters in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game as they try to uncover the truth behind Henke's escape from the airport.

My Take

Like many of director Andrew Davis's action-suspense films (including Under Siege, Above the Law, and his Academy Award-nominated take on The Fugitive) The Package is not merely a chase film peppered with gunfights, car chases, and a happy Hollywood-type ending. Yes, the film does have at least one car chase and a couple of firefights, but it's also an ingenious puzzle-box in which Gallagher and a few trustworthy accomplices (including an ex-wife who outranks him in the Army) not only have to figure out what "Walter Henke" is up to, but who else is involved in the conspiracy that slowly but surely draws them all in.

During the latter years of the Cold War, many authors (including Tom Clancy, Larry Bond, and Joe Weber) tried to come up with stories that dealt with the post-Reagan era end game between East and West, especially the resistance to change in the balance of power between the two superpowers, In Clancy's novels The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988) and The Sum of All Fears (1991), the late author created an ambiance in which hardliners on both sides resisted the easing of tensions that resulted from glasnost and perestroika. Joe Weber, on the other hand, riffed on The Package's notion that drastic measures, including murder, would be used to preserve the Soviet Communist Party's supremacy in the USSR, even if it led to war.

The Package was inspired by the spate of films involving conspiracies that were all the rage in the 1970s, especially Executive Action and Three Days of the Condor, as well as the real-life assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It is exquisitely well-written by actor-turned-playwright and screenwriter John Bishop, who also wrote 1994's Drop Zone, whose script is clever and so airtight that it actually has a perfect three-act structure and a story that doesn't start out as a smart political thriller and ends with spectacular explosions and smarmy one-liners from our hero.

Davis also pulls off the difficult trick of making the viewer believe that The Package was shot in various European and U.S. locations. With the exception of a short sequence filmed at the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin's Tiergarten, The Package was shot in Davis' home town of Chicago and other parts of Illinois. (Setting it in December, when snow and wintry conditions occur in North America and Germany, was a clever move on the part of Bishop and Davis.) All the filmmakers need to do is show snowy landscapes, a fleeting shot of what might be the U.S. Capitol, change Illinois license plates for Virginia or DC plates, and have a character say "I'm in Arlington, Virginia," and no one is the wiser.

The score by James Newton Howard is taut and effective, adding tension and a sense of danger to the proceedings on the screen. And cinematographer Frank Tidy helps Davis in his conspiracy to have us believe that we are crossing from Berlin to Chicago by way of Washington with his careful placement of the camera and other moviemaking tricks.

But The Package mostly works because it features strong performances by two-time Academy Award-winning actor Gene Hackman. Hackman was never the leading man-type of thespian during his long career; he was more of a character actor who blended in with the role he played. And even though he might have been a bit too old for the role of Sgt. Gallagher, his skills as an actor help him sell the character to the audience.

As Gallagher's sarcastic and wily foil, the often demoted "Walter Henke," Tommy Lee Jones is riveting. When we first see him in the custody of two mean-looking MPs, Jones appears to be nothing more than a hard-drinking and undisciplined GI with a penchant for shooting his mouth off. But as the film progresses, "Henke" shows hints that he is smarter and more dangerous than he lets on.

Joanna Cassidy, Dennis Franz (Die Hard 2, NYPD Blue) and Pam Grier (Foxy Brown) are on board this riveting thrill ride as Gallagher's support team, and they are, for the most part, believable in their roles. And in a nod to 1973's Executive Action, reporter Ike Pappas appears as himself in a cameo, which Pappas had done previously in David Miller's JFK conspiracy film that starred Burt Lancaster, Will Geer, and Robert Ryan.

The one issue I have with The Package is the lack of attention to detail by the makeup department, and especially the work by hairstylists Ron Scott and Kathy Swanson. Many of The Package's characters are active-duty officers in the American and Soviet military, yet they are shown with a hodge-podge of hairstyles that would not meet the strict regulations regarding grooming for both men and women.

Lieutenant colonel or no, Joanna Cassidy would have been written up for this non-regulation 'do. © 1989 Orion Pictures

Joe Greco's Brigadier General Carlson's hair is also very unmilitary.© 1989 Orion Pictures 

Although it seems like an insignificant detail, this inattention on the part of the production crew was a distraction that often pulled me out of the movie. I simply could not see Joe Greco as a believable brigadier in the few but crucial scenes in which he appears, and although I thought Joanna Cassidy is credible as Gallagher's ex-wife, it was hard to look at her wild-and-crazy curls and accept her as a commissioned Army officer.

Aside from that, The Package is still a gripping suspense film along the lines of Seven Days in May or the aforementioned Executive Action. If you haven't seen it, it will keep you glued to your seat as you try to guess what will happen next.