Fair Game (1995)

Director:

Andrew Sipes

Writers (WGA):

Paula Gosling (novel)
Charlie Fletcher (screenplay)

Release Date:

3 November 1995 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Thriller

Tagline:

He's a cop on the edge. She's a woman with a dangerous secret. And now they're both...

Plot:

Max Kirkpatrick is a cop who protects Kate McQuean, a civil law attorney, from a renegade KGB team out to terminate her.

Plot Keywords:

Car Accident | Animal | Mother | Flying | Villain

Awards:

3 nominations

Cast

William Baldwin	...	Det. Max Kirkpatrick
Cindy Crawford	...	Kate McQuean
Steven Berkoff	...	Colonel Ilya Kazak
Christopher McDonald	...	Lieutenant Meyerson
Miguel Sandoval	...	Emilio Juantorena
Johann Carlo	...	Jodi Kirkpatrick
Salma Hayek	...	Rita
John Bedford Lloyd	...	Det. Louis Aragon
Olek Krupa	...	Zhukov
Jenette Goldstein	...	Rosa
Marc Macaulay	...	Navigator
Sonny Carl Davis	...	Baker
Frank Medrano	...	Graybera
Don Yesso	...	Beanpole
Paul Dillon	...	Hacker

MPAA:

Rated R for intermittent strong violence, language and a scene of sexuality.

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Russian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Netherlands:16 | Argentina:13 | Peru:14 | Iceland:16 | USA:R (certificate #34166) | Netherlands:12 (TV rating) | Philippines:R-18 | Australia:M | Finland:K-18 | Germany:16 (w) | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:M18 | South Korea:15 | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Coral Gables, Florida, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Michael Kamen was the film's original composer along with his friend, David Sanborn, who was going to provide the saxophone solos for the score. His score was rejected after the film we delayed with re-shoots and post production issues. The film's original posters list Kamen and Sanborn as the composers. Mark Mancina would replace Kamen and it was the second time the he would replace him on a film in the same year, the other being Assassins also produced by Joel Silver, which would also be delayed and released within months of each other.

Goofs:

Continuity: Max jumps into the freight car feet-first, but in the slow-mo replay he lands head-first.

Quotes:

Max: Who's ever after you are real pros.
Kate: I guess I should be proud, it would be embarrassing to be killed by an amateur.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The King of Queens: Fair Game (#2.16)" (2000)

I may be biased because I like Cindy Crawford, but so what...

Okay, so it's got hardly any plot and what there is doesn't make much sense. So it was doomed to be slated by critics the second Cindy Crawford said yes. So the film may have the world record for the number of scenes in the trailer that aren't in the finished film. It's still far from the worst film ever made, and certainly far from the worst in the year it came out (1995 was the year of "Showgirls," "Waterworld," "Species," and "Congo" for openers).

Way too much senseless violence, confusing scripting (from Charlie Fletcher and an uncredited Steven E. deSouza), and frenzied editing for sure, and Cindy's Oscar is unlikely to be coming any time soon - but she's no worse than the rest of the cast (and unlike Steven Berkoff, at least SHE hasn't sunk to doing a Jean Claude Van Damme film since). She's actually pretty good more often than not, and her punches are more convincing than some male actors (though hitting the smuggest of the smug Baldwin brothers provides motivation). Let's just say that the man credited as her acting coach clearly didn't see all his efforts go unrewarded.

And you have to give her and the rest of the cast and crew credit; no one ever pretends that "Fair Game" is anything other than an unpretentious action film, which can't be a bad thing. (But then even Cindy's biggest detractors have never claimed she was pretentious.) While it is mainly for fans of the moled one, it's still short enough not to hurt, and it certainly improves on the last time the Paula Gosling novel it's based on was turned into a film (the truly awful "Cobra" with Sylvester Stallone), and you don't often see films starring lawyer characters doing something other than criminal law. And before you point out that no lawyer ever looked as good as Cindy Crawford, remember that that never stopped Steven Bochco - or David E. Kelley with "Ally McBeal." Now who would you rather be represented in court by, Cindy or Ally?