Hey, Mate!

In "Tango & Cash", the titular characters are sent to prison on a frame job, but in no time at all they are out again. While in the prison though, they manage to do a lot. They shower, they are nearly killed, they lob a lot of one liners at each other, and they receive cellmates. These cellmates fall on opposite ends of the spectrum, but each in his own way is meant to be very intimidating. I guess they're effective enough.

Kurt Russell's Gabe Cash finds himself sharing a cell with a mountain of a man who denies him access to the toilet. It's lucky that he is not in prison long enough to experience a bowel movement. I don't think they receive even one meal there. I'm not sure either that they are even there overnight. Time passes in a nebulous fashion there, but perhaps it does not pass fast enough for Cash, who we are made to understand is very afraid of his cellmate.


I'm not sure how scared Sylvester Stallone's Ray Tango is supposed to be of his cellmate, a twitchy, wiry guy who goes by the appropriate sobriquet "Slinky" and who is played by the great Clint Howard. He shows himself to have a very erratic personality, and so I think we're meant to understand that theoretically he could violently lash out at Tango, but that of course it won't happen at all. These cellmates are not involved in the conspiracy to kill the two at all, which seems like a mistake.

Still, the cellmates are an amusing enough detail in the prison interlude. As with many things in the movie, I might have done it differently, but considering how well it works, I have a hard time claiming I would definitely have done it better. Maybe the cellmates get entangled in the escape attempt instead of being easily sloughed off as Tango and Cash make their move? I don't know. Maybe not. Anyway, they were there.