Tango & Cash

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Once in a generation...a movie comes along that changes the landscape of cinema and completely rewrites the rules of its genre...

This is not one of those movies.

This week, the guys sat down to watch the Sylvester Stallone/Kurt Russell buddy cop epic, Tango & Cash. Or, as we here at Here Be Spoilers like to think of it...

Not even close.

Stallone and Russell are Tango and Cash. They're cops! One is neat and orderly. One is disorganized and chaotic. Can they get along?!?

Ray Tango is smart, well-off, and a damn good cop. When we meet him, he is in the process of shooting a truck to stop Gerardo and HBS patron saint Robert Z'dar from delivering a milk truck full of cocaine to...Um...Well, it's not really clear. Although Jack Palance may have something to do with it.

Jay Leno's and Bruce Campbell's chins cower in awe of the mighty Z'dar.

Shortly after, we meet Gabriel Cash. He's a loose cannon. He's dangerous. He's kind of Mel Gibson's Martin Riggs character from Lethal Weapon, but without the charm, talent, or likeability. And he's being shot at by a Chinese assassin, because why the hell not?

Both of these incidents are connected because due to downsizing in the 80s, Los Angeles had to concentrate its entire bad guy population into an old guy with only one lung: Frenchman Yves Perret, played by Jack Palance as a not-at-all French guy who wheezes a lot and concocts ridiculous schemes to rid his organization of the dead albatrosses known as Tango and Cash from around its neck.

Fun Fact: The rats were not a part of the script. Palance requested them
left around the set so he could snack between takes.

To that end, he comes up with a brilliant plan involving framing the two cops for the murder of an FBI agent. With the help of Brion James doing a terrible cockney accent, and an audio expert, this is exactly what happens.

They believe this shouldn't happen because they're smarter than that.
But no. No they are not.

Tango and Cash are sent to jail (the wrong one, because what sort of buddy picture would this be without at least one wacky mixup), where they are enthusiastically greeted by hundreds of criminals that they themselves had put there. Including Clint Howard! So it's not all bad.

With the help of Cash's old captain, they escape and take refuge in Tango's house, where his sister Kiki (Terri Hatcher, looking very Alyssa Milano-y) is staying while she dances on the Strip. But not the totally naked kind. More like the Jennifer-Beals-in-Flashdance kind.

With posters...not pictures...of herself on her own bedroom wall.

After a shower and some fresh clothes, as well as yet another hilarious mix-up involving a Three's Company-esque misunderstanding that leads Tango to believe Cash is poking Kiki, the guys get to work proving their innocence.

When they hunt down the mush-mouthed cockney Requin (again, Brion James...Let that sink in...) to get some information out of him, they choose less...standard methods.

The only way to confront Brion James.

All of this leads to a shootout between Tango and Cash, and Perret, who is holding Kiki as his hostage. You can probably guess how that turns out.

Derek refuses to believe these two idiots can even tie their own shoes, let alone be such highly-decorated police officers. And the fact that they have to point out over and over how smart they are shows just how much they are not.

Jake is still not sure what he was thinking when he chose this movie for the guys. He does, however, offer a compelling view into what he believes to be Sylvester Stallone's method for shooting emotional scenes.

Larry is fascinated by Robert Z'dar's chin. Also, what was with the Chinese guy who smoked a lot and did little else? These are the kinds of things that keep Larry awake at night. Also, WHY, KURT RUSSELL? WHYYYYYYYYY?

Because I want...to be alone...

There's also lots of fun stuff in The Lobby, two movies (but only one the guys could say anything about) Coming Soon, the worst of 1989 in Larry's List, holiday horror movies for Jake-ing Off to, and a convoluted conversation about unmade superhero movies that winds up casting the X-Men with the Brat Pack Inside My Head.

So load your guns, strap on some smarm, and listen to this week's episode!