Gene Hackman is Sam Boyd, an old CIA agent who is dragged back into "Company Business" in this 1991 film also starring Mikhail Baryshnikov. Boyd has to funnel money to the Russians using a prisoner switch as an excuse, but it all goes awry when, during the exchange, he realizes the prisoner the Russians are sending over is someone he just saw at the airport. He aborts the switch immediately. He and his Russian (Baryshnikov) are directed to a safe house, but when it blows up, Hackman realizes the CIA wants both of them dead. So they go on the run with $2 million.
This film had a light, breezy atmosphere to it, and the two stars play it sort of like an "I Spy" episode. It's not an out and out comedy but it's pleasant and implausible enough. Someone thought that the "big reveal" about the young the woman helping the two in France made the thing truly ridiculous - I don't know why. Baryshnikov at the time of the filming was 43, and the young woman (Geraldine Danon) was 23. What's the problem? Great locations in Berlin and France, good acting, and some exciting scenes. Fun if you're not expecting "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold."
