The Package – Review

As an attempt to end the Cold War and pull the world back from the brink of annihilation by prohibiting nuclear weapon usage, a treaty could be finalized soon and tensions are high. U.S. Army Master Sergeant/Green Beret tough guy Gallagher (Hackman) meets with superiors, which give him a quick recon mission. He grabs his men and they move out into the immediate surroundings of East Berlin, as world leaders meet at the embassy.

Securing the perimeter, the men have a run-in with some dog-walkers as well as the Berlin police who have jurisdiction and take them into custody. Thankfully, an agreement is reached, and a treaty is planned for signatures in 10 days at the United Nations. The world begins to breathe easy.

However… something is not quite right, and the events of the morning were more than they seemed. As assassinations hit, and bullets start flying, Gallagher moves into action with his men to stop the terrorists. This leads army intelligence on a trail towards Neo-Nazis, and a possible attempt on the president.

As Gallagher is tasked with taking back a “package” that the U.S. wants tomorrow, he wonders what is going on. Soon he meets this task: a rascally Airborne Ranger prisoner named “Hanky” whom he is to turn over to a Federal Marshall at the meeting point. The men board a plane, begin talking life, politics and morals, and off flies the movie and all of its many plots where not everything is immediately apparent.

The Package is a fairly solid action movie, and has a good story. It’s not anything that will win any awards, but it is serviceable on all fronts. The cast is full of familiar faces of the time, and a bunch of action movies that followed it used its ideas. Though, let’s be real, it probably recycled other stuff of the past also. Hackman and Jones carry the movie, and it’s definitely worth a look.

This movie feels like a bit of a precursor to The Fugitive at times, which is from the same director and was a few years later.