''The Soldier'' (also released as ''Codename: The Soldier'') is a 1982 American

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

action Action may refer to: * Action (philosophy), something which is done by a person * Action principles the heart of fundamental physics * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video gam ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. ...

written, directed, and produced by

James Glickenhaus James Glickenhaus (born July 24, 1950) is an American filmmaker, financier, and automotive entrepreneur. He directed, wrote, and produced a number of action films during the 1980s and 1990s, including ''The Exterminator'' (1980), ''The Soldier (19 ...

The film stars Ken Wahl, Alberta Watson, William Prince, Joaquim de Almeida, and

Klaus Kinski Klaus Kinski (, born Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski 18 October 1926 – 23 November 1991) was a German actor. Equally renowned for his intense performance style and notorious for his volatile personality, he appeared in over 130 film roles in a ...

, that featured a cameo by rising country superstar

George Strait George Harvey Strait Sr. (born May 18, 1952) is an American country music singer, songwriter, actor, and music producer. Strait has sold over 120 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He holds ...

. The film was shot on location in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Buffalo and

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

West Berlin West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1 ...

, and

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. The ski sequence was filmed in St Anton am Arlberg in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. The original score was composed and performed by the German electronic band

Tangerine Dream Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup of the grou ...

Plot

Renegade

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

agents, headed by Ivan, hijack a

plutonium Plutonium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is a silvery-gray actinide metal that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four ...

shipment inside the United States and use it to plant a nuclear device in the Saudi Arabian Ghawar Oil Field. They threaten to detonate it, thereby contaminating 50% of the world's oil reserve, unless

withdraws its settlements from the West Bank. In Washington, the American President contemplates starting a war with Israel, in order to save the world from a potential oil crisis. Washington is unaware that the KGB are behind this threat. The President orders the head of the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

to find out who has planted the bomb and to do anything he can to stop this. The Soldier is then activated. An elite CIA agent codenamed 'The Soldier' ( Ken Wahl), working outside the usual channels, is assigned to the case. After Russian agent Dracha attempts to terminate him in the Austrian Alps, he contacts the CIA director from the US embassy in West Berlin. A KGB agent assassinates the director and frames The Soldier for his murder, leaving no official knowledge of his activities other than the president, who has disavowed any knowledge of his actions. On the run from his own government, he seeks refuge in the Israeli embassy. He and his team cooperate with the Israeli

Mossad The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (), popularly known as Mossad ( , ), is the national intelligence agency of the Israel, State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with M ...

, represented by their director of covert operations Susan Goodman. Meanwhile, the president authorizes military action against Israel. Given the unpleasant options of the KGB destroying a large part of the world's oil supply or the United States having to invoke a military response to force Israel to remove its settlements from the West Bank, the Soldier decides to take a third option. His team infiltrates and captures a US nuclear missile silo in

Smith Center, Kansas Smith Center is a city in and the county seat of Smith County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 1,571. History Smith Center was founded in 1871. The first post office in Smith Center was establish ...

, and obtains independent launch capability. As the American military launches their air strikes toward Israel, The Soldier and Susan break into

East Berlin East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...

by launching their Porsche over the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

, confronting the KGB agents and informing them that if their nuke in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

is detonated, his team in Smith Center will nuke Moscow. This forces the Russian KGB to dismantle their device in Saudi Arabia and the American air strike is recalled.

Cast

* Ken Wahl as The Soldier, CIA Special Activities Division Operative. * Alberta Watson as Susan Goodman, Israeli Mossad Director of Special Operations * William Prince as The President * Jeremiah Sullivan as Ivan, Rogue Soviet KGB Agent. * Joaquim de Almeida as Unus, CIA Special Activities Division Operative. * Peter Hooten as Duo, CIA Special Activities Division Operative. * Steve James as Tribus, CIA Special Activities Division Operative. * Alexander Spencer as Quartus, CIA Special Activities Division Operative. *

as Dracha, Rogue Soviet KGB Agent. * Al Israel as Keene / Gunman #1 * Ned Eisenberg as Hirsch * Martin Höner as Michael *

Jeffrey Jones Jeffrey Duncan Jones (born September 28, 1946) is an American actor, known for his roles as Emperor Joseph II in '' Amadeus'' (1984), Edward R. Rooney in ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off'' (1986), Charles Deetz in ''Beetlejuice'' (1988), Dr. Skip Tyl ...

as US Assistant Secretary of Defense *

Željko Ivanek Željko Ivanek (; ; born August 15, 1957) is a Slovenian-American actor of Croat descent. Ivanek's film credits include '' Courage Under Fire'' (1996), '' Donnie Brasco'' (1997), '' Hannibal'', '' Black Hawk Down'' (both 2001), '' Unfaithful'' ( ...

as Rogue KGB Agent Bomb Maker / Cleaning Lady. *

Ron Harper Ronald Harper Sr. (born January 20, 1964) is an American former professional basketball player. He played for four teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA) between 1986 and 2001 and is a five-time NBA champion. Early life Ronald Har ...

as Head of CIA * Reuben Singer as

Israeli Prime Minister The prime minister of Israel (, Hebrew abbreviation: ; , ''Ra'īs al-Ḥukūma'') is the head of government and chief executive of the State of Israel. Israel is a parliamentary republic with a president as the head of state. The presiden ...

has a

cameo appearance A cameo appearance, also called a cameo role and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief guest appearance of a well-known person or character in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking on ...

as Himself, performing the song " Fool-Hearted Memory". According to an interview with director James Glickenhaus, the scene with Klaus Kinski was added when the production was under budget and they were able to get Kinski for one day.

Production

first conceived the film's premise after reading

John McPhee John Angus McPhee (born March 8, 1931) is an American author. He is considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the category General Nonfiction, and he won that award on the fourt ...

's ''The Curve of Binding Energy'' which explained the methods by which plutonium is transported. Glickenhaus scouted locations in Berlin and Munich, Germany, after receiving an offer of German financing, provided that the project be set partially in that country. Glickenhaus traveled for four weeks before composing a first draft of The Soldier, based on places he had seen and devoid of sequences that would be expensive or difficult to shoot. He then continued his travels for an additional two weeks in order to reaffirm what he had written. After the promised German funding fell through, Glcikenhaus took the project to Avco Embassy Pictures assuring the company his thorough planning would enable them to produce the picture at a lower budget, as they had done with his previous film, '' The Exterminator''. Avco Embassy agreed to provide $6 million in production costs and serve as a worldwide distributor. Glickenhaus arranged foreign sales deals at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival, which fully recouped the film’s budget well before its scheduled domestic release.

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack was performed and recorded by Tangerine Dream. All tracks were composed by

Edgar Froese Edgar Willmar Froese (; 6 June 1944 – 20 January 2015) was a German musical artist and electronic music pioneer, best known for founding the electronic music group Tangerine Dream in 1967. Froese was the only continuous member of the gro ...

, Chris Franke, and Johannes Schmoelling. The soundtrack was released as part of the box set ''Pilots of Purple Twilight (The Virgin Recordings 1980-1983)'' (2020). "The Soldier: Opening Theme" was released on the bootleg 70/90'' (1990). "Soldier on the Beach" was released on the fan release ''

Tangerine Tree Tangerine Tree was a fan project operating from 2002 through 2006 with the goal of collecting, preserving and distributing unreleased concerts and other audio material by the band Tangerine Dream. The creators of the Tangerine Tree project received ...

Volume 50: Assorted Secrets 2'' (2004).

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Soldier, The 1982 films 1982 action thriller films 1980s spy films American spy films American action thriller films Cold War spy films Films about the Mossad Embassy Pictures films Films about terrorism Films about the Central Intelligence Agency Films directed by James Glickenhaus Films scored by Tangerine Dream Films set in Austria Films set in Berlin Films set in East Germany Films set in Jerusalem Films set in Kansas Films set in Minsk Films set in Ontario Films set in Paris Films set in Philadelphia Films set in Saudi Arabia Films set in Tel Aviv Films set in West Germany Films shot in Buffalo, New York Films shot in New York City Films shot in Philadelphia Techno-thriller films 1980s English-language films 1980s American films English-language action thriller films