Well-constructed political thriller, brilliantly staged in Chicago doubling for Berlin and Washington as well as itself. Hackman, sidekick Franz (playing a cop!), and Cassidy all turn in effective performances, and Jones is nervously wired as a clearly malevolent bad actor, though Heard is too lightweight to play the main heavy. Sometimes the gritty realism of the settings drags the drama down into the mundane, the dialog is undistinguished, and motivations are incalculable. Nifty, overlooked.

Fine suspense thriller. Nifty surprises and violent plot twists add excitement.

Crudely effective political thriller. (Plot Formula 1-B: the military can't sit by and watch a couple of Gorbachev and Bush look-alikes sign a disarmament pact; they've got to assassinate somebody.) The storyline is decently complicated, but the pace (to say nothing of the camerawork) is too pell-mell to take much notice.

The cast gives it some pizzazz, but basically this is a routine thriller