Tango & Cash (1989)
Sylvester Stallone plays Ray Tango, a flashy, business-savvy LAPD narcotics officer. Kurt Russell plays Gabriel Cash, a blue-collar, devil-may-care type who scores big busts with equal success. Drug kingpin Yves Perret (Jack Palance) wants the two biggest impediments out of his way, setting into motion a plan to have Tango and Cash brought up on a bogus murder charge. The cops, initially sentenced to a short stint in a minimum security prison, get railroaded (thanks to Perret’s influence) to a seedy penitentiary, where their lives are in danger at every turn. They have no choice but to try to escape and clear their names, taking down Perret in the process.
The origin of Tango & Cash started with film producer Jon Peters, who, with assistance from his production partner Peter Guber, came up with a basic action-comedy story idea: Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid if it were set today and they were cops instead of crooks. The cops are an odd couple, one a high-class type and the other an impetuous slob, each seeing himself as the best cop in town, with jealousy toward their rival across town for grabbing media headlines they want for themselves. However, they find themselves having to join forces against a powerful drug cartel while bantering through comedic hijinks.
Screenplay duties fell to Hell Night screenwriter Randy Feldman. The initial title was, “The Set-Up”, later changed to just Setup, with Sylvester Stallone set to star as the yuppie cop, Ray Tango. For his blue-collar rival across town, Gabriel Cash, they sought Stallone’s rival in Hollywood, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger declined, as there was animosity between the two actors both professionally and personally and he knew it would be an uneasy alliance. The film wouldn’t boost Arnold’s career in the way it would Stallone if successful, so he didn’t see the need to help Sly out at this point, though he would appear with him later on when both of their careers needed a spark in The Expendables films and Escape Plan.
Stallone was still reeling from his decision to abandon Beverly Hills Cop after revising the comedic script into the grim and gritty action vehicle he felt his fans would want to see. After Beverly Hills Cop proved to be a smash hit, as well as other snarky actioners like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, he realized he wasn’t changing with the times. His rival in films, Arnold Schwarzenegger, took a chance by appearing in a pure comedy in 1988, Twins, which not only brought out his fans but gained him new ones. Stallone felt he should take a similar turn, but studios wouldn’t accept him outside of action vehicles just yet. Studios rejected his script ideas for biographies on Edgar Allen Poe and Puccini. But if he could prove himself in a successful action-comedy, he’d be one step closer to broadening his repertoire.
Playing Tango allowed Stallone to play something new rather than another monosyllabic loner, an articulate sophisticate who went through life with a sense of humor, not unlike te real Stallone. Tango’s wardrobe would be modeled to Stallone’s personal style, sporting Armani suits and designer prescription eyeglasses that he actually wore when not on a movie set. Tango is also intelligent, achieving success using his methodical mind.
By contrast, Gabriel Cash is rock-n-roll (Stallone described the character as “Bruce Springsteen with a badge”) who takes down bad guys through sheer gutsiness. The producers cycled through A-list actors who could play a blue-collar physical type with comedic flair. Eventually, they landed Patrick Swayze.
Runaway Train‘s Andrei Konchalovsky was selected as the director, his first for a major studio. As summer approached, the title was changed again, this time to Tango & Cash, because Stallone had another film set to be released called Lock Up and the studio thought another prison film featuring Stallone called Setup would be confusing to the public.
A setback occurred when Swayze dropped out to star in Roadhouse, causing a month-long delay to the production start to find another actor. Stallone deflected about the casting issues, claiming it wasn’t easy to find someone who wouldn’t be intimidated by playing opposite him, which was an additional dig on Schwarzenegger.
They landed Kurt Russell, who accepted the offer for the large paycheck and much-needed exposure after a string of box-office disappointments that eroded studio perception of him as an A-list actor. Though the role required playing second banana to Stallone, bare his bottom, and dressing up like a woman, Russell felt it was worth it if it meant not having to haggle about his $5 million asking price for a while.
For a couple of the henchman roles to fill, John Matuszak was a top choice but he died in June of 1989 due to heart failure as a result of an accidental overdose of prescription meds. Seattle Seahawks linebacker Brian Bosworth, who was forced into retirement after two seasons due to injuries and was looking to break into acting, was heavily pursued. However, Bosworth’s agent allowed ‘The Boz’ to sign, claiming that it wouldn’t be good for Bosworth’s first exposure as an actor with aspirations of being an action star to play a villain beaten up by Stallone. Mike Tyson was also a consideration but he was training for an upcoming fight while also in the midst of a messy divorce with actress Robin Givens.
Konchalovsky had wanted to work with Brion James for many years, but Cannon Films couldn’t afford James’s salary requirements. After being hired, James requested that, rather than be just another run-of-the-mill hitman from Cleveland he play his role as Requin with a Cockney accent. He rehearsed it with Russell and Stallone during his first scheduled scene and they felt it worked great. As Stallone helped with daily script revisions, he expanded James’s role from his initial two small scenes to appear throughout the film.
For the role of Ray Tango’s stripper sister, Kiki, Konchalovsky wanted “Shirley MacLaine type”, someone he was once romantically involved with and continued to have a fondness for. However, Peters was dating Kim Basinger and preferred a blue-eyed blonde. The casting director, Glenn Daniels, sought someone believable as Stallone’s sister, with darker features. The part eventually came down to three actresses: Karen Young (who resembled MacLaine), Daphne Ashbrook (a blue-eyed blonde), and Teri Hatcher (a skilled dancer with darker features). Hatcher was the odds-on favorite for the part but Peters refused to hire her and forced them to go with Ashbrook. Ashbrook’s first day several weeks into the shoot, it became apparent she was all wrong for the part. They scrambled to get Hatcher, who was set to leave for Mozambique for work, on the set the following day.
Russell knew that he’d need to get into good shape to handle the physical demands. Teasing Russell for skipping his workout, Stallone would toss Twinkies into Russell’s trailer and call him a marshmallow. The actors’ desire to do their own stuntwork was scaled back after Russell tore his hamstring on the first day performing several takes chasing a perp down the street. After several weeks of healing, Russell tore it again.
Konchalovsky wanted the prison to look “old and funky”, so they secured the 119-year-old Old Workhouse in Camp Washington (Cincinnati area) for a location shoot because of its look as well as the number of available nearby hotels to house the cast and crew so they could get in and out quickly. They also would recruit about 300 to 400 locals to use as extras. In exchange for the use of the jail, the studio agreed to donate either equipment or money to the City of Cincinnati and the Sheriff’s Department. Additional prison footage was shot at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield.
Tango & Cash was plagued with production problems and clashing egos throughout. There wasn’t a finished script, and scenes were being altered or added on a daily basis, which also caused many issues with scheduling what locations and which actors were needed for the day’s shoot. Konchalovsky quickly fell behind schedule and over budget. A prominent but anonymous crew member told the press that Tango & Cash was the worst organized and poorly prepared film he’d ever worked on, with no one seeming to know what was supposed to be done from day one.
Jeffrey Boam attempted a major rewrite, which he calls a long, incredible, and awful attempt that he didn’t lobby for credit on because, while he spent a lot of time rewriting, he didn’t change the film in any meaningful way conceptually and they didn’t adhere to many of the changes he did make. Stallone became the person who took over scripting chores, but he wasn’t alone, multiple actors got involved in changing the nature of their scenes to their liking.
Don Peterman left as the cinematographer two weeks prior to production start, citing a family emergency. Barry Sonnenfeld replaced Peterman on one day’s notice. Sonnenfeld later learned, as Peterman was the DP for his Addams Family Values, Get Shorty, and Men in Black that the “family emergency” was a cover for his real reason, which was to desert a sinking radioactive ship. Sonnenfeld was perplexed by conflicting decisions made by Konchalovsky and Stallone, the latter who became upset at the way he was being filmed. Stallone, as a shorter man with partial paralysis of his face, had guidelines that cinematographers had to follow in terms of placing the camera low and to either not shoot the left side of his face or to obscure the paralyzed portion with lighting. After nine days, Sonnenfeld was fired, which he was not dismayed about because he had a “pay or play” contract that gave him the money despite his firing and he could enjoy his summer vacation with his family. Stallone brought in Donald Thorin, who had just filmed Lock Up with Stallone, as Sonnenfeld’s replacement.
Russell says that dressing up as a woman in the film was the only time in his career where he didn’t feel like he knew what he was doing as an actor. He says he looks like an ugly version of his mother and doesn’t understand the appeal of cross-dressing. For a scene where Tango and Cash walk out of the showers showing their backside, Russell comes to the set in a towel ready to go, while Stallone sends a body double. Russell said if he has to bare his butt, Stallone surely has to do it. Russell finally convinced Sly by pointing out that the double had a noticeable hair butt and Sly should definitely not put that out there.
Konchalovsky says that he knew he was likely going to get fired early on when he was asked by a producer why he wasn’t moving his camera. Konchalovsky felt that, as director, he was the one calling the shots and the camera should only move when he wanted it to move. The producer told him he wanted to see the camera move with every shot. From then on, he had a constant battle with producer Jon Peters on just about everything. Konchalovsky wanted to make a formula buddy cop comedy but Peters wanted it to veer much more strongly toward a full-on comedy. Peters’ ideas were, in the minds of Konchalovsky, increasingly insane.
Their biggest dispute came from the film’s ending, in which they finally were at an impasse. By this point, the studio was demanding an accelerated pace to make a December release date, requiring major compromises in the ever-shifting script.
Konchalovsky’s premonition came true. With just a couple of weeks left in the shoot, Konchalovsky also got the axe. Stallone claims no responsibility for the firing, adding that he loved working with Konchalovsky, calling him a wonderful man, He regretted his firing especially because he knew many would assume he was to blame for it. Although Konchalovsky did fall significantly behind in what was intended as a 55-day shoot, Stallone argued that this schedule was unreasonable and that the shoot should have been no less than 80 days. However, Warner was determined to move at breakneck speed to ensure a December release and felt that removing Konchalovsky was necessary to place people into direct scenes simultaneously to get it done. According to Konchalovsky, Stallone was the sole presence on the set keeping everything together. He began taking on bigger roles, helping with the production, the writing, the direction, and mediating between parties that were no longer speaking to each other. In hindsight, Konchalovsky felt very happy when he was content to have been fired, leaving Hollywood with his guaranteed salary for France to make movies his way again.
Stallone and producer Peter MacDonald, who directed Sly in Rambo III, handled the directorial duties but DGA laws wouldn’t allow them to continue long, so they secured the services of Albert Magnoli, who worked with Donald Thorin on Purple Rain. Reportedly, Stallone and MacDonald continued on the first unit while Magnoli primarily did the second unit work, all working together to complete the film in a hurry. As Magnoli’s involvement wasn’t substantial enough, only Konchalovsky received the director’s credit. Magnoli got paid over $700,000 for three weeks of shooting.
Guber and Peters vacated their roles as the film’s executive producers mere days before completion after they were asked by Sony to co-chair their newly acquired Columbia Pictures. Warner Bros. sued, attempting to hold them to the five-year contract they signed in May 1989 where they would honor whatever productions they had through the end of their contract. Guber-Peters says Warner voided the contract by replacing them before the contract’s expiration. The biggest reason was that, after the May production start was delayed, Guber-Peters expected Tango & Cash to be released early in 1990 but Warner wanted it for a December 1989 release merely so it could stay the top-grossing studio for 1989, over vehement objections by Jon Peters as being inconceivable to finish by then.
The pressure campaign accelerated the remainder of the shoot, cutting out or drastically altering slated scenes, as well as re-shooting the opening sequence during two additional weeks of reshoots to fix the pacing and story issues. The original opening featured news reports covering Tango’s bust in a warehouse where assault weapons were illegally stored and Cash’s bust of an illegal drug manufacturing plant, followed by the crime lords discussing how much these two cops have cost them and the decision to take them out. The newly hot scene has Ray Tango taking down a tanker truck full of cocaine in a stand-off that rips off a similar scene in the Jackie Chan flick, Police Story, while the crime lord sequence is pushed forward later into the film. They employed editors, including Stuart Baird, dibbed “Mr. Fixit” by Warner Brothers execs for his work cutting Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, to work on the film around the clock. Hubert de La Bouillerie came in to assist with the final push to get things edited. Although initially scheduled to be $35 million, the final budget soared to about $54 million, all told.
Harold Faltermeyer was hired for the score. However, Faltemeyer had permanently left for his native Germany to be with his family and was unavailable to re-do it for the re-editing so they brought in Gary Chang for a week to patch things up using the Synclavier.
Despite all of the tumult, Stallone called it the most fun he’d ever had working on a movie and was sad when it was all over. They had a lot of fun joking around, especially off-camera. Stallone said that working with Konchalovsky and Russell upped his performance as an actor, much in the same way working with John Huston and Michael Caine did the 1981 sports drama, Victory. He felt sharing the limelight in front of and behind the camera made him a better actor and he’d stick with it going forward. By contrast, Jack Palance called it his worst experience working on a film, singling out Stallone in particular as the source of the issues due to his arrogance and immense ego. The script originally had three scenes between Palance and Stallone but those were cut and they never worked together. New scenes were put in with Palance with butterflies, monkeys, and rats.
Tango & Cash debuted at #2 at the US box office for its Christmas weekend release and hovered in the top 5 for about two months, earning $63 million total. While not what Warner hoped for domestically, it was a huge hit internationally, even though humor didn’t always translate well in non-English releases.
Tango & Cash was pushed by Warner as a possible Oscar contender for some technical categories but the only nominations it received came via the Golden Raspberry Awards (aka, “The Razzies”), which bestowed three nods for Worst Actor (Sylvester Stallone), Worst Screenplay (Randy Feldman), and Worst Supporting Actress (Kurt Russell, who appears in drag). Stallone lost out to William Shatner for Star Trek V but did scoop up a bigger award for being named the Worst Actor of the Decade of the 1980s.
Tango & Cash is a typical 1980s buddy cop movie, whereby much of the fun comes through the repartee between the two rival leads, while they do little more than heckle each other while making fun of the bad guys, while explosions erupt and bullets fly. it’s a far cry from 48 Hrs. and Lethal Weapon, but for those looking for a high-octane, low brain-cell diversion, it may find a guilty pleasure-loving audience with you. It’s the kind of fantasy-land movie where cops are super cops who habitually find their antics splashed across headlines in the city’s most prominent newspapers, with each bust as important as winning a Superbowl, and then they never have to do any paperwork once it’s all over.
The one thing that made it somewhat ahead of its time in the genre was the amount of metatextual humor that is very commonplace for action movies today. For instance, Stallone provided a wink-and-nod by having Tango refer to Rambo as a “pussy” in the film, or when he proclaims to hate Danish (the dessert), which refers to his recent bitter divorce from philandering and reckless Danish model/actress Brigette Nielsen. Stallone also digs at Schwarzenegger when he gets violent with Robert Z’Dar, who plays the henchman nicknamed “Face” (the man with the huge chin), stating, “I loved you in Conan the Barbarian!” Z’Dar happened to have a passing resemblance, Stallone felt, to Schwarzenegger and Stallon admitted in interviews that he imagined it was Arnold as he delivered the violence.
Some silly hijinks result in such lowbrow fare as seeing Russell in drag, some gay prison jokes, and the like, but nothing works as good as the repartee. Palance makes for a formidable bad guy, though he’s not nearly given the quality of lines as the protagonists, and he does little more in the film than service the retread plot from time to time. Teri Hatcher is memorable eye candy as Tango’s younger sister, Catherine (aka Kiki), who just so happens to be a stripper. Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, replaced by Albert Magnoli at some point late in the production), who delivers action with a wallop, though the plot is too generic to elicit any true thrills. Tango & Cash is merely a lot of wisecracks, star power, and brutality, and not much else. This may be just enough for some viewers, however, especially die-hard fans of the two leads, both of whom are the best part of this otherwise vacuous attempt at an action flick.
Stallone once said that when his kids misbehave, he threatens them by making them sit and watch Tango & Cash or Stop or My Mom Will Shoot if they don’t shape up. Kurt Russell has called Tango & Cash, “The biggest piece of shit I’ve ever done,” though that distinction would change later after he made 3000 Miles to Graceland. Konchalovsky has subsequently referred to Tango & Cash as a movie for people who can’t read and he’s surprised to learn that there are people who respond favorably to it.
- In 2019, Stallone revealed that he’s been interested in doing a follow-up to Tango & Cash but Russell has been on the fence about it because he feels they are past their prime and they should leave it alone. He does say that perhaps if Stallone had a son who wanted to start with Russell’s son Wyatt, it might be doable. Stallone’s son Sage died in 2012 and Seargeoh has had lifelong struggles with autism. it’s speculated that Russell’s reticence is because he didn’t enjoy working with Stallone on Tango & Cash, which could be a reason that he also turned down a role in The Expendables movies.
Qwipster’s rating: C-
MPAA rated R for strong violence, some sensuality, brief nudity, and language
Running time: 104 min.
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell, Jack Palance, Teri Hatcher, Brion James, James Hong, Michael J. Pollard,
Cameo: Clint Howard, Billy Blanks
Director: Andrei Konchalovsky, Albert Magnoli
Screenplay: Randy Feldman