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Film / Fair Game (1995)

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Fair Game is a 1995 American action thriller film directed by Andrew Sipes, starring Cindy Crawford, William Baldwin, and Steven Berkoff.

As part of a divorce proceeding, Miami family law attorney Kathryn "Kate" McQuean (Crawford) attempts to seize a docked freighter ship in lieu of unpaid alimony. Unbeknownst to her, the freighter's owner is a Cuban criminal and serves as the base of operations of a group of rogue KGB members turned international criminals, led by Kazak (Berkoff), who assemble into tracking and killing McQuean.

Florida police detective Max Kirkpatrick (Baldwin) is assigned to the case, and he ends up on the run to protect McQuean when it becomes clear that she's targeted for murder.

Salma Hayek, in one of her earliest American films, has a small role as Kirkpatrick's ex-girlfriend.

Not to the confused with the 1986 Australian film of the same name.


The film has examples of:

  • Asshole Victim: The random angry mother beating and verbally abusing her child whom Max and Kate happen to wander past is just asking to be punched out. Kate happily obliges when they run into her a second time.
  • Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: Kate is shown at one point changing her shirt (and she isn't wearing a bra) after it has already being established that she's being pursued by former KGB operatives. Granted, at least she changed only her shirt.
  • Chewing the Scenery: The Big Bad is played by Steven Berkoff - what did you expect?
  • Coitus Uninterruptus: At one point Kate and Kirkpatrick get it on inside of a cargo train that they hopped in to escape the bad guys, and don't notice that the bad guys finally found them and one of them is training his rifle on them for a good thirty seconds. Then they do and Kirkpatrick ends up being quicker on the draw.
  • Everything Is Online: '90s version, which means that the characters get calls traced and lo-jack accounts get hacked at a really fast speed, keeping the Russians one constant step behind the heroes.
  • For Inconvenience, Press "1": What causes Kazak's Karmic Death, other than the boat exploding? The fact that he was not able to run away because he was waiting for the operators of the bank he was transferring the funds to to pick up his transmission, and then dealing with the languages menu, and then (as a last bit of irony) all operators of the line he selected being busy.
  • GPS Evidence: Variation — one of the clues that eventually leads Kirkpatrick to figure out that the bad guys are Russians is the fact that they're still using Russian guns with Russian ammo. After his first encounter with them he picks a spent shotgun shell as evidence and (with some help of a family member in forensics) discovers that the shell's label is written in Cyrillic.
  • Hello, Attorney!: You can't get a more axiomatic example than an attorney played by Cindy Crawford in the '90s. As expected, she's complimented for her looks to hell and back in-universe.
  • Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Drive-by shooting attempt on a divorce lawyer (which then escalates to trying to blow up her apartment) -> Stern Chase of said attorney all over Florida by bunch of renegade Russian spies plotting to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from shadow accounts and using the boat that was being disputed over in said divorce as base of operations
  • Ms. Fanservice: Kate McQuean, who seems to have a lax attitude about nudity, and is played by none other than Cindy Crawford.
  • Non-Actor Vehicle: The protagonist is played by model Cindy Crawford.
  • Obligatory Earpiece Touch: One assassin sent to eradicate attorney Kate McQuean and her squad of bodyguards knows that his surviving targets are aware they're in mortal danger, and he needs to know Detective Kirkpatrick's location from his cohorts, who are using thermal imaging to track their victims. This assassin repeatedly asks, "Where is Target Three?" while holding his earpiece, because this intel is critically needed. The response is "He's right in front of you!" Sure enough, the assassin looks up to see Kirkpatrick firing bullets into him.
  • Only in Florida: The Stern Chase happens all over Florida.
  • Piecemeal Funds Transfer: Features this, and worse, the transaction was aborted because everything exploded before the Exact Progress Bar was finished.
  • Pocket Protector: Kate's teeny-tiny Walkman, worn on an armband, somehow manages to stop a bullet. Honestly the biggest challenge to suspension of disbelief isn't the bullet-stopping but the fact that it was hit at all, considering how small it is.
  • Renegade Russian: The "Russian spy that has decided he's Only in It for the Money and using skills to get a profit" kind is the whole Big Bad Ensemble.
  • Sexy Soaked Shirt: Kate has one of the these after the climax.
  • Spicy Latina: Salma Hayek's character acts completely berserk when breaking up with Kirkpatrick.
  • Stern Chase: The chased: a poor attorney and the cop trying to protect her. The chasers: a heavily-armed bunch of renegade Russian assassins that keep catching up because of magical hacking skills.

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