Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Scotty Burke It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

retroparat Terrible movie with so many plot holes. And Gene Hackman plays a self righteous sergeant in the army. They are planning an assassination of one of the leaders. The plan includes high officials in many police departments and in the military. Hackman is on the pursuit of the truth and what happened. Of course he has an ex - wife higher up on the military chain than him so she gets some movement. Her friend, Ruth, helping her, gets killed and they are upset. Everyone gets killed except Hackman. They recruit a "buddy" of his on the Chicago P.D.... They now go on the last offensive to stop and find out what is going on. So many issues. The cop, helping Hackman, gets shot and tells Hackman to go, because he is wanted by the police and army. Does he go? No! He stays with the injured officer and then promptly gets "arrested" and is handcuffed. Is he shot in the head and then dumped out in some alley? No, they take him where, to the safe house where the plan is going down. Doo they inject him with something lethal or to put him to sleep, no, they let one guy go down to "set up" Hackman's death. But, alas, he is able to beat the guy up, all from sitting on the ground mind you, and escape. At the end all the players are in the right place to be intercepted by Hackman and Franz (The officer helping Hackman). When you watch this movie you will do what we were doing, or saying. Like, why don't they, no way and all they have to do is!!! By the way, Hackman's wife, in the movie, is a colonel and oh, isn't missed at her job (post) in the office. The Secretary and people she does "business" with are not inquiring. Lastly, Joanna Cassidy, who is Hackman,s ex wife and is helping him was distraught over her friend, as I mentioned earlier, Ruth being killed, but, they now are happy and she isn't mentioned AGAIN and they are happy, like if didn't even happen. Again, suspend your brains, which is hard to do, because even a child won't understand why they do these things. One thing, I heard Hackman turned down the role in the "Fugitive" and thus, was given to Tommy Lee Jones. Do they, Hackman mainly , read the script before they do the movie??? Because if they do, well, something is wrong in their brain . Thanks for reading. God Bless. James

davideo-2 STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning Seargent Johnny Gallagher (Gene Hackman) is a gruff, no nonsense army veteran who doesn't follow the rule book and leads his troops in his own distinct style. But when a mission he headed goes disasterously wrong, he finds himself assigned to escort troublesome prisoner Thomas Boyette (Tommy Lee Jones) back from Germany. But when Boyette escapes after an airport altercation, it sets in motion a chain of events, where Gallagher finds himself implicated in a murder and Boyette's true identity and intentions become more terrifying.I've always been an admirer of The Fugitive and, especially, Under Siege, so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered, for the first time, this prior Tommy Lee Jones/Andrew Davis collaboration that doesn't seem to have as much recognition. Although I was interested in seeing it, I didn't expect it to be quite up to the standards of what was to follow from the pair and while it far from falls short of even this expectation, The Package does still come off very much like a build up to something better than something on an equal footing.It opens well, in typical Davis style, and generally carries it's plot in quite a slick and competent fashion, but after a while it really does develop quite a TV movie feel, with a less involving plot and less engaging characters than those other great two films I mentioned, a story that feels slightly too heavy and complicated, while Hackman just phones in another hard faced, craggy army captain role and Jones doesn't have the material to bring his character here to life in the same way he brought out Strannix and Gerard.All that said, though, this is still quite a worthy and well made effort that is slick and polished and carries itself well enough and certainly set in stone what was to follow from Jones and Davis. **

drylungvocalmartyr I ran into The Package on TV the other night and was pleasantly entertained. I'm quite surprised not to have heard about this movie since it has a star-studded cast and a renowned director. Maybe the reason for being relatively unknown is the film's genre, the political thriller. Anyways, The Package is a solid film with a good pace and a story that probably was more relevant back in the day but still enjoyable today. As for the actors, Gene Hackman stands out of course, he's always been good at portraying military characters. It's amazing to see his ability to bring intensity on the screen, especially when it comes to face-to-face confrontations. His scenes with John Heard are good examples of this and he will bring this to another level with Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide. It was also interesting to see Tommy Lee Jones in a bad guy role earlier in his career. For fans of Hackman and Jones The Package is a must see, for others it's a safe bet for worthy entertainment.

blanche-2 Tommy Lee Jones is "The Package," a prisoner that Gene Hackman is returning to the United States from Germany in this 1989 film also starring Joanna Cassidy, Dennis Franz and John Heard. The United States and the Soviet Union are in the midst of delicate peace negotiations, but there are factions of the military who don't want to see it happen. Jones is Tommy Boyette, their hired assassin who, through an intricate plot, is supposed to kill the soviet premier. Boyette escapes via a mens room while the Hackman character, Johnny Gallagher, is returning him to the states. Gallagher starts investigating; it's not long before he's uncovered the plot.This is a very good movie with some exciting sequences and lots of tension, as Gallagher finds himself and everyone around him in tremendous danger as he figures out what's going on. He has the help of his ex-wife (Joanna Cassidy) who is in the military, and a Chicago police officer, played by Dennis Franz.The problem with this film is in its timing - it was released in August 1989 in the U.S., and in November of that year, the Berlin Wall came down, rendering the film dated -- and it had only been released in two countries by then. It's nevertheless a well-acted, well-directed film. Seen today, it holds up better as a story set in the past than it did a story set in a present that was changing dramatically.