Gorky Park (1983)

	Directed by: Michael Apted	COUNTRY USA GENRE Crime/Drama/ Thriller/Romance NORWEGIAN TITLE Mordene i Gorkiparken RUNNING TIME 128 minutes
	Produced by: Gene Kirkwood Howard W. Koch Jr.
	Written by (based on the novel by Martin Cruz Smith): Dennis Potter

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Arkady Renko	William Hurt	½
Jack Osborne	Lee Marvin	½
William Kirwill	Brian Dennehy
Iamskoy	Ian Bannen	½
Irina Asanova	Joanna Pacula	½
Pasha	Michael Elphick
Anton	Richard Griffiths
Maj. Pribluda	Rikki Fulton
Prof. Andreev	Ian McDiarmid

Review

William Hurt's elegant, arrogant and delicately aloof Arkady Renko is the hub in this investigation mystery portraying the corruption, mistrust, and coldness of a closed Cold War Soviet Union. Despite some seemingly biased opinions on the Soviet way of life, the film actually holds up well as a fair document of the Cold War, showing the downside from both perspectives and maintaining faith in a socialist society despite delivering it some heavy blows. It should be kept in mind that to shoot a film like Gorky Park from a Soviet perspective in 1983, allegedly from the inside of the USSR, and with a Soviet hero and an American villain, was a rather controversial move. Helsinki worked as a stand-in for Moscow and British English as a stand-in for Russian, but the filmmakers still managed to create a highly believable and sober film. Gorky Park is atmospheric, tightly knit and portrays a cold and uncommercial society in an attractive, even sexy manner.