Fair Game (1995)

****SPOILERS***** Action packed police movie set in Florida about a group of mobsters consisting of ex-KGB agents led by former KBG agent Kazak, Steven Berkoff. The mobsters use an off-shore freighter, The Tortugo, to tap into underwater bank cables and steal millions of dollars in bank transactions. That plan falls apart when the feisty and pretty civil lawyer Kate McQueen, Cindy Crawford, got in their way and had to be eliminated in order for them to keep up their illegal activities.

Attempting to assassinate Kate at the beginning of the movie as she was jogging down swanky Ocean Drive she has Homicide Detective Max Kirpatrick, William Baldwin, assigned to be with her around the clock to watch protect and defend her, it's a real hard job but somebody's got to do it, against other attempts on her life. This gang of ex-KGB thugs really mean business as they blow up half of South Florida to get the pair, Max & Kate. As usual, in the movies, Max & Kate are always one step ahead of them and the mobsters no matter how much men and firepower as well as electronic equipment that they have are no match against the two who have almost nothing but the clothes on their back, and some times not even that, to fight them with. Far more violent then most action police movies with almost the entire cast wiped out, with the exception of Max & Kate of course, by the ending credits.

The action scenes of "Fair Game" are a lot like the old Saturday afternoon cliff-hangers with Max & Kate looking like they've had it and then just getting away from the bad guys every fifteen or so minutes in the movie. The bad guys are as bad as they can get in what they do and try to do, you can just imagine anyone trying to hurt or kill Cindy Crawford has to be the biggest enemy against hu-MAN-ity in history.

The last half-hour of the movie is non-stop action on the roads and highways as well as railroad trains and ships in the South Florida area with the most graphic boat sinking since, even though movie was made in 1995 but I haven't seen it until 2004, the movie "Titanic" in 1997.

Outlandish but at the same time ironic ending with the head gangster Kazak instead of trying to escape the sinking and exploding ship tries to punch into the ships computer the information that he needs to complete his illegal bank transaction of almost one billion dollars! All this with him knowing very well that he won't make it out alive by taking so much time doing it! It's as if Kazak just wanted to die rich.

Fmovies: Before it careens into total silliness, `Fair Game' is a lot of fun. After the rather absurd attempted shooting of Crawford in the opening scene, `Fair Game' begins rather effectively examining the loss of privacy in the digital world, a fresh idea in 1995 (`Enemy of the State' didn't arrive till three years later). Crawford plays a lawyer specializing in civil cases. While helping one of his divorce clients she inadvertently falls under the scrutiny of a group of former KGB assassins. William Baldwin (`Backdraft')is the cop assigned to protect her. Baldwin looks like a cross between his brother Alec and Nicholas Cage; in other words, kind of goofy. Cindy Crawford looks like Â…well, Cindy Crawford, one of the world's most beautiful women. Crawford received some pretty bad raps for this movie. That's really unfair, but not surprising, considering Hollywood's experience with supermodels. In the 50s, they used to dub supermodel Suzy Parker. Crawford's considerably better than that. Her voice and line readings remind me of early Farrah Fawcett.

The big problem here is neither Crawford nor Baldwin. It's a script that would have us believe former KGB operatives would miss Crawford with a machine gun as she stands by a storefront with no cover. It's a script that would have us believe KGB agents would blow up Crawford's house with C4 to cover a COVERT operation. It's the script that would give Baldwin endless supplies of 9mm ammunition, while he leaves behind machine guns and `street sweepers'. It's a script that has the intelligent, sensible Crawford running from Baldwin, her only ally. It's a script that would have us believe the feisty Crawford would surrender without a fight, etc., etc.

Production values for `Fair Game' are top notch, great color photography, sound, music, editing and stunts. Had producer Joel Silver substituted Jackie Chan for Billy Baldwin, `Fair Game' would have made a first rate martial arts movie, even with its other shortcomings. ‘Course, I'm not sure Cindy Crawford would've `gotten naked' for Jackie Chan. Well, topless, anyway.

`Fair Game' is a `dumb blonde' of a movie, but Crawford is anything but dumb. She deserved better and deserves another opportunity to prove her mettle as an actress. If she made another movie, I'd go see it, even if she become closer to an "8" than a "10".

Nonetheless, `Fair Game' is, at worst, a `fair' movie. I give it a `5'.

This is bad, very bad. It must have sounded like a good idea at the time: "Die Hard With Legal Mumbo-Jumbo" with a twist: we'll have a sexy model as the star.

Erm, it sounds good on paper, and perhaps it would have been a good idea if they hadn't screwed the damn thing up by giving us a weak script, even weaker plot, weaker villians and then give up on the sexy model as John McClane and turn her into a damsel in distress.

It almost feels like Producer, Joel Silver is satirizing or parodying himself in the constant need for set-piece action after set-piece action strung together on the weakest thing to ever grace the screen.

Everything that hits something explodes, cars hit telegraph poles and explode violently, tree's that are in the way explode even more violently...its almost too much to take in. I know action is what was driving hollywood around the early 90s - but this is just TOO much.

Anyway, the film pretty much nose-dives when Crawford - who looks stunning - turns into a damsel in distress with Baldwin acting like he's painting by numbers - just doing the thing because either Stallone dropped out or because of the money.

Not even the "sex-scenes" can save this terrible affair. Not even Berkov, now type-cast as Russian bad guys, can save it. Everything hurts...everything. The end explosion looks kinda cool, but it can't mask the fact that this film is flimsy at best - and at worst? Well, I just don't wanna think about that.

They could have made it a lot better than this trash. A die-hard with a woman as the hero could have been done a lot better. Its a shame with the buckloads of money they wasted on this trash seems to have gone onto Crawford's make-up.

My Rating: 0/10

Fair Game fmovies. Okay, so it's got hardly any plot and what there is doesn't make much sense. So it was doomed to be slated by critics the second Cindy Crawford said yes. So the film may have the world record for the number of scenes in the trailer that aren't in the finished film. It's still far from the worst film ever made, and certainly far from the worst in the year it came out (1995 was the year of "Showgirls," "Waterworld," "Species," and "Congo" for openers).

Way too much senseless violence, confusing scripting (from Charlie Fletcher and an uncredited Steven E. deSouza), and frenzied editing for sure, and Cindy's Oscar is unlikely to be coming any time soon - but she's no worse than the rest of the cast (and unlike Steven Berkoff, at least SHE hasn't sunk to doing a Jean Claude Van Damme film since). She's actually pretty good more often than not, and her punches are more convincing than some male actors (though hitting the smuggest of the smug Baldwin brothers provides motivation). Let's just say that the man credited as her acting coach clearly didn't see all his efforts go unrewarded.

And you have to give her and the rest of the cast and crew credit; no one ever pretends that "Fair Game" is anything other than an unpretentious action film, which can't be a bad thing. (But then even Cindy's biggest detractors have never claimed she was pretentious.) While it is mainly for fans of the moled one, it's still short enough not to hurt, and it certainly improves on the last time the Paula Gosling novel it's based on was turned into a film (the truly awful "Cobra" with Sylvester Stallone), and you don't often see films starring lawyer characters doing something other than criminal law. And before you point out that no lawyer ever looked as good as Cindy Crawford, remember that that never stopped Steven Bochco - or David E. Kelley with "Ally McBeal." Now who would you rather be represented in court by, Cindy or Ally?

Definitely not Oscar material, but a good late night watch. Lots of action and stunts. Cindy Crawford can't act, but who cares!? The plot involves some high tech Ruskies who are after Cindy, as F.B.I. Agent Billy Baldwin comes to the rescue. There is ensuing sexual tension.

In my opinion most blockbusters are watchable movies. Some are good, some are not so good. Some are even quite bad, but they try so hard to offer something for everyone that there usually are at least some things in the movie you like. But because they do offer something for everyone, they usually also have some things you don't like. However, once in a while a film comes along which focuses solely on it's own target audience. Sometimes the critics and fans of so-called 'quality cinema' are the target audience. In those cases we have films like "American Beauty". Sometimes fans of sex-related teen-comedies are the target audience and we have a film like "American Pie". And sometimes fans of pure action-entertainment are the target audience and we have a film like "Fair Game".

This is a film which most people have a strong opinion of. Others love it while others hate it. What's interesting is that the reasons for the opinion of the film are the same for both people. Others hate it because it's unbelievably dumb, excessively violent, has an unoriginal plot, stupid dialogue and has no good actors. However, others love it for the same reasons. And I'm one of those people.

The film is based on Paula Gosling's novel of the same name. It's interesting to notice that Sylvester Stallone's actioner "Cobra" was also based on the same novel but the films have very little in common. About the only thing they share is the hate of the critics and the love of action-fans. What's even more interesting is that Stallone was originally attached to this film as well.

Anyway, about this film.. While it's true that no-one has been able to make a good macho-actioner since the 80s (except Steven Seagal and even he is now making films like "The Patriot"), this is a quality effort if there ever was one. This has everything I want (a macho cop as the hero, a sexy woman as his sidekick, lots of action and gratuitous violence) and nothing I don't (a deep and original plot, Academy Award-winning actors, emotional scenes between mom and daughter...). Actually many scenes here are so stupid that they could be considered campy and even if you aren't a fan of the genre, you might enjoy laughing at the movie's unintentional humor.

One of the things which always means a lot to me in films is the score and "Fair Game" has one of the best scores I've ever heard. I liked Mark Mancina's score to "Speed" and "Bad Boys" but they're nothing compared to this. A brilliant main theme combined with excellent underscore. Full marks.

There is also the traditional "You killed my partner. Big mistake, you hear me? Wanna know why? Because I'm gonna come and get every last one of you!"-threat from Baldwin. I love those lines, I really do. "Cobra" was filled with them and the mid-80s was a good time for macho-actioners.

In fact, "Fair Game" is like a throwback to the 80s, when Joel Silver still made good actioners (Commando, Action Jackson, Die Hard, Road House - all brilliant). Of course it's not intelligent. Of course it's not original. Of course it's not a film which makes people think about their lives. It is pure action-entertainment, nothing more and nothing less. This will definitely appeal to fans of "Cobra", "Action Jackson" and the early Steven Seagal-films. However, if you don't like action, pure action a