As someone who is a big fan of Peckinpah's films like "The Wild Bunch" or "Convoy", I was very excited when I read the plot for 1975's "The Killer Elite". However, although it was not the worst film I ever saw, it became clear that it was not the greatest one either. The film stars James Caan and Robert Duvall as CIA contractors Mike Locken and George Hansen respectively, who take on the jobs the government doesn't want you to know about. The two are the best of friends until George betrays Mike by killing a man they were supposed to protect and shooting Mike in the knee. Broken, both physically and mentally, Mike soon sets his sights on revenge by going at it in physical rehab and martial arts. Soon he gets his chance when the people he works for learn that George is back in town to assassinate a client they've been hired to protect. Naturally, there's only one man who can do it and won't pass it up.The film works better in the first half, where George betrays Mike and Mike does everything in his power to get well and in the process shacks up with a pretty nurse. And it's also fun when we meet Mike's two helpers for the job, expert but cowboy killer Jerome Miller (Bo Hopkins) and street smart but world weary operative Mac (Burt Young). However when we get to the second half of the film, all of suddenly high stunt Kung Fu is introduced when it's learned that the man Mike and his team are supposed to protect is Oriental politician Yuen Chung (Mako) and his entourage that includes his daughter, Tiana (Tiana Alexandra). This might sound cool and it would have been if .........SPOILER....... Robert Duvall's character didn't die too early in the film. The sole purpose for Mike to take this job is of course his desire for revenge on George. The movie's plot made it look like the whole movie was going to be a cat and mouse game between Caan and Duvall. Once Duvall dies though, there's very little reason for the movie to continue. Yet it does for another forty-five minutes and as a result, it feels a little too long. END OF SPOILER........Now the martial arts that follows is done very well and impressive to watch; however, it just doesn't feel like Peckinpah's heart is in it. Case in point, at the final fight scene between Yuen and the head ninja occurs, Mike and his comrades seem content to watch, and rather dispassionately I might add. The film also suffers from disjointed editing, particularly the scene with the two heads of the company going over papers while one of them is bidding his time to make an important phone call (if you watch the film, you'll know it when you see it). "The Killer Elite" just doesn't seem to have the feeling of Peckinpah's other work. With that said, the film is not all bad. All the actors give great performances, be it the underrated James Caan as Mike, Robert Duvall as the treacherous George, Burt Young as Mac (who curiously, does a good job fighting ninjas), and Bo Hopkins as Jerome Miller. There's even a little bit of rare comedy from Peckinpah here concerning a cop and a bomb. And of course the idea of the CIA hiring unofficial heavies to do their dirty is by no means far-fetched. Plus, one has to keep in mind that there may very well have been studio tampering involved here, something that Peckinpah had to constantly deal with in his career. Who knows, perhaps he had a very different story in mind and it was shot down. For what it is though, if you are a big Peckinpah fan, "The Killer Elite" would not be a bad way to spend your time. After all, as someone else on this site said, watered down Peckinpah is still Peckinpah.

The Killer Elite 1975 by all accounts, a legendary fiasco of a production, the director drunk most of the time and everyone else snow blind. This is the film where (allegedly) a crew member introduced Sam Peckinpah to cocaine, which didn't seem to help "Bloody Sam's" moody irascibility. James Caan and Robert Duvall give bizarre performances, manic and weird (cocaine is a hell of a drug) and even Burt Young looks glassy-eyed and ringy. The resurrection of the body is the theme. Caan's collapse in a restaurant is briskly cut for maximum shame and helplessness, followed by "Cleft chins and true hearts are out." Then it is mid-70s martial arts on the road to rehabilitation and revenge. After reinstatement, Caan announces, "I'm gonna need some things." and Arthur Hiller says, "Get em," and hands over a huge wad of cash. Burt Young and Bo Hopkins have Caan's back: "One is retired, the other is crazy." Hopkins makes his first appearance shooting skeet with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, "The Poet of Manic Depressives" with his shy smile and aw shucks charm, surely the stand-in for Peckinpah: "I didn't think your company would hire me." Mako gets to sword fight at the end. Absurd. The surprise is how watchable it is.

It's official; James Caan plays my favorite spy-hero with a limp and a cane. It certainly is a unique twist to have a physically-disabled fellow as the action guy, but of course it is the betrayal and shooting--in the knee and elbow--of Mike Locken, played wonderfully by Caan, that fuels the rest of the movie. Locken, who tends to joke his way through dangerous jobs and doesn't seem to believe in anything even as he serves his country (albeit as freelancer), wants revenge...but is physically unable to go after it.At least, that's the prediction. Caan's two bosses, played by Gig Young and Arthur Hill, take the doctor's gloomy prognosis as writ, and Caan is to be forced into retirement, even as our hero insists that he will not be shelved. Soon after this, an Asian politician whose life is under threat in his native country arrives in San Francisco, but given what erupts before he and his entourage (including feisty daughter) are barely off the plane, it's clear that ninja assassins have followed him on his little visit. When the intended hit goes pear-shaped, the man who shot up Caan is brought in as back-up--and suddenly Caan is the flavor of the month again. Though Revenge and Bodyguard lines blur as Caan resorts to using the targets as bait to flush out the old friend who bushwacked him.This strange film is one I have grown to like more than I ever did upon first viewing, when I went "enh, izz okay". I think what has happened with me and repeated viewings is that I am now well-distanced from the film I thought I was going to see, and am quite fond of what THE KILLER ELITE is actually doing...and doing quite well, mostly. This happened to me recently with the film starring Gene Hackman called THE CONVERSATION, which I was forced to reevaluate after a second perusal, and it's the exact same thing: expectations not met, but expectations were unfair. Part of it is the obvious: wanting more action, a faster pace, wanting a James Bond spy movie, or Bourne, more action, the modern pacing, maybe even more glitz and pyrotechnics. And even when the action scenes come in a 70s film, how can they compete with what gets cooked up for these thrill-rides we get today? They can't.Caan is perfect as the "crippled" hero (his bosses use that word, so I repeat it), who, maybe, can think about walking in a year. His acting of frustrating body-pain is very convincing, which you already know if you've seen him in the great film MISERY. Earlier, I said Caan has many scenes showing a gradual physical rehabilitation, and I deliberately didn't say "and mental rehabilitation" because there is no mental rehabilitation. That is not a slight on Caan's acting--far from it. The character of Mike Locken never crumbles, mentally. He wants to walk again. He tries too hard to walk again. He is trapped in a body that was superbly conditioned for covert action, and he can't stand lying around hearing how it won't ever get much better. Once his tender nurse, Amy--who devotes all her time to helping this wise- cracking bear of a man get at least to crutches level--begins to fall for him, they go for dinner and Caan tries too hard, too soon, to prove he can move about like anyone without leg and arm braces. It's a fiasco. And by this time, Peckinpah and Caan have shown, expertly, that the action can wait while character is shown and romance blooms.Anyway, once the crutches are tossed in the river and replaced by a cane that can be wielded in combat as well as just being used to walk about on dates with a loyal woman, we know that the film is slowly shifting gears, and the Peckinpah action, hiding for a while after the bloody start, is coming back. There could be another traitorous rat. There will be swordplay, gunplay, a bomb under a car, payoffs, and death drops. The lead-in to all that may seem a little ponderous, but for me it gives the film soul. And thank ruddy goodness that Caan's limp doesn't just dissolve into thin air when the carnage erupts!In my review of THE NATURAL, I was a bit disparaging when it comes to icon Robert Duvall, but with THE KILLER ELITE, I must rebound a bit, and say that Duvall really delivers. As a guy with a lot on his mind at the start, he really nails that brooding concentration just sort of slipping out from his wise-guy antics and dialogue and hinting what he's really about. Then, when he comes back into the story, the menace is palpable but not overdone. No, if anyone gets on my nerves in this film, it's Burt Young; bless him, but if I ever have to see a guy muck with his hat, and finger point, and wave his hand up around his head for no reason, and generally fidget his way through a performance, I'm going to go out of my mind. The ending has been criticized as a "throwaway". Well, things do get a bit weird at the finish. Serious mood, gravitas, gets trashed as characters joke about some violence going on around them. But...we knew these characters were jaded, cynical, disillusioned, only half-believing in what they fought for the whole time. I don't love it; but I don't hate it. I sort of zone out on the martial arts free-for-all that erupts and zone in on the sudden death of a character, and the closure for Caan when it comes to settling up with the final betrayer.Something different, and refreshing.

Okay, the story makes no sense, the characters lack any dimensionally, the best dialogue is ad-libs about the low quality of this excuse of a movie, the cinematography is dismal, and only editing saves a bit of the muddle,but Sam" Peckinpah directed the film. Somehow, his direction is not enough. For those who appreciate Peckinpah and his great work, this movie is a disappointment. Even a great cast cannot redeem the time the viewer wastes with this minimal effort.The proper response to the movie is the contempt that the director San Peckinpah, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Burt Young, Bo Hopkins, Arthur Hill, and even Gig Young bring to their work. Watch the great Peckinpah films. Skip this mess.