-Stars Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell as 2 rival LAPD Narcotics detectives who are framed for murder and have to work together to clear their names
Did You Know?
-When Tango and Cash escape the prison, Cash turns to Tango and asks him if "stopped for coffee and a danish". Tango says "I hate Danish" as a sort of in-joke referring to the recent divorce from Danish actress Brigitte Nielsen
-When Brion James was cast in the role, it was only meant to be a small role with a few lines. But it was Jame's idea to give the character Requin a Cockney(accent used in and around London, England) accent to make him stand out more.
-The glasses Stallone wears in the movie are not fakes but really his own glasses. If you look closely, the glasses indicate he's near sighted in one eye.
Plot
-The film starts out as Det. Ray Tango(Sylvester Stallone) is driving a late model Cadillac convertible in pursuit of a tanker truck transporting cocaine. He cleverly stops in front of the truck and when L.A County authorities find only gas in the tank, Tango shoots it and cocaine comes pouring out. Elsewhere, Gabriel Cash(Kurt Russell) arrives at his apartment driving an old Corvette. His style, compared to Tango's 3 piece suits and neatly combed hair is considered casual. Cash wears a t-shirt, his hair is long and shaggy, and a waist length jacket. When he enters his apartment, he finds an intruder and is shot, but a bulletproof vest is protecting him. At the police station, Cash forces the shooter to tell him about a deal scheduled to take place later that night.
-However, the "deal" is really a set up by Yves Perret(Jack Palance) to frame Tango and Cash for murder. The 2 cops go to an empty building, preceded by a man named Requin(Brion James), Perret's henchman. After being startled by each other's presence, they find a dead man with audio equipment hidden in his clothes, and suddenly a team of FBI agents swarm in. Agent Wyler finds Cash's pistol on the floor and arrests both of the detectives
-At their trial, the detectives are incriminated by an audio tape, secretly given to Wyler by Requin and verified in court by an audio expert, which appears to reveal them shooting the FBI agent after talking a drug buy. They plead no contest and are sent to a minimum security prison but instead are taken to a maximum security prison to be housed with many of the people they put away.
-At this point, Perret, who kidnapped Katherine, starts a timer that will trigger the building's automatic self destruct. After killing Perret's core security, Tango and Cash are confronted by Requin, who is holding Katherine at knife point, but throws her aside to fight the 2 detectives hand-to-hand. They both defeat him and when Perret appears holding a gun to Katherine's head, they kill him and leave the building with Katherine just before the building detonates. Afterward, Cash jokes about his desire to date Katherine. The film ends with a newspaper headline celebrating their clearance
Cast
- Sylvester Stallone as Lt. Ray Tango
- Kurt Russell as Lt. Gabriel Cash
- Teri Hatcher as Katherine "Kiki" Tango
- Jack Palance as Yves Perret
- Brion James as Requin
- Geoffrey Lewis as Captain Schroeder
- Eddie Bunker as Captain Holmes
- James Hong as Quan
- Marc Alaimo as Lopez
- Michael J. Pollard as Owen
- Robert Z'Dar as "The Jaw"
- Lewis Arquette as Federal Agent Wyler
- Roy Brocksmith as Federal Agent Davis
- Richard Fancy as Nolan (Tango & Cash's Lawyer)
- Michael Jeter as Skinner (the audio expert)
- Clint Howard as "Slinky" (Tango's cellmate)
- Benny Urquidez as Thug (uncredited)
