Gorky Park

The movie is directed with efficiency by Michael Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter) who knows that pacing is indispensable to a procedural. Read full review

Uneven but sometimes fascinating murder mystery. Read full review

Michael Apted's direction keeps the tension high most of the time, and Dennis Potter's screenplay ably wends through the very complex plot that has but a few loose ends. [13 Dec 1983]

What's interesting about revisiting the film today is that the elements that engaged people most at the time - the thriller plot and the glimpse into Soviet life - maintain hardly any fascination. But the love story - what might have been regarded at the time as the obligatory "romantic interest" - stands out as something of lasting appeal. [26 Mar 2017, p.Q41]

There's enough menace and romance in Gorky Park to appeal to many, especially those helped by the memory of Martin Cruz Smith's successful novel. Read full review

On the whole, Mr. Apted's approach to the material is archly effective, making for a crisp, intricate thriller, well able to hold an audience's interest. Read full review

Directed by Michael Apted, who keeps the action hopping at least for the first hour, and treats most of his Russian characters as reasonably whole human beings. [05 Jan 1984, p.23]

It's not a movie for the easily distracted, but it has its rewards for those who pay attention. [19 Dec 1983, p.C6]

Apted's tedious, literal-minded approach doesn't come close to solving the problems of a knotty, best-seller plot—the characters are reduced to telling each other what happened. Some action-movie slam-bang would have been more satisfying, if ultimately no more coherent. Read full review

Hurt and Dennehy are excellent, as ever, but Marvin is badly miscast as a ruthless smoothie; and the film as a whole, while never less than involving, seldom generates any real suspense as it moves towards a curiously muffled showdown. Read full review

A number of grievous things have gone wrong with Gorky Park, the disappointing film version of Martin Cruz Smith's savory mystery novel, in its transition from print to celluloid. But chief among them is the casting of William Hurt as the leading man. [16 Dec 1983, p.F10]

Hurt's horrendous, with his goofy stilted accent. He talks as though he swallowed a bathtub. [16 Dec 1983, p.24]