Lesser Sam Peckinpah film is still solid entertainment, even if it's nowhere close to his artful masterpieces of "The Wild Bunch," "Straw Dogs," or "Ride the High Country." James Caan plays an off-the-books CIA/black ops type who's double crossed by his partner, Robert Duvall, and left crippled. Caan goes through arduous physical therapy and learns martial arts and how to fight with his new cane in order to enact his revenge on Duvall and the organization that's abandoned him. Although this film does have it's defenders, "The Killer Elite" is pure surface level entertainment. When Peckinpah was asked how he prepared for this film, he said he watched a bunch of Bruce Lee movies, which is a pretty good indication he wasn't focused on his usual themes of men-out-of-time, masculinity, and violence. However, Sam Peckinpah knows his way around an action sequence better than most and he delivers a number of exiting shootouts. The martial arts sequences are admittedly not as good as his shootouts, but Peckinpah's use of slow potion and montage during those scenes is interesting none-the-less. The shootouts though are, as you would expect, a knockout! Overall, this story isn't all that clever or interesting, but thanks to the talents of the director, the action here was more than enough to hold my interest. FUN FACT! Monte Hellman is credited as casting the film.

Talk about one very strange, put together film by legendary film-maker Sam Peckinpah. It's choppy as hell, rather mysterious and ambiguous in its intentions. I liked it, but at the same time I couldn't help but feel disappointed in this raw, explosive old-fashion action thriller with an exciting cast. We're thrown right into it at the beginning with a splintering explosion. Elite assassins and good friends Mike Locken and George Hansen work for a private crime fighting organization who handles the assignments that the CIA prefer not to touch. During a job this friendship comes apart when one of them is bought off by a higher bidder. At this time Peckinpah had fallen out of favour with Hollywood, but was given another chance with "The Killer Elite" and plenty would say it's one of his lesser works, if not. One noticeable thing here was the violence was cut down to remove its graphic nature to allow for a PG-13 rating for commercial success, but even with that it still remained unpleasant in details. Rather disappointing, but its flaws were more than just that. The editing was all over-the-shop, but even the script just seemed to become even more bewildering and daft the further along the story's sinister scheming went. The clunky narrative is one big unscrupulous game, throwing in themes that always seem to pepper Peckinpah films in the shape of friendship, loyalty, honour and personal survival in a dog eat dog world. It was hard just making sense of what was transpiring, that in the end all you could do is marvel at the dazzling parade of fashionable violence done in slow-motion that was orchestrated in some stunning set-pieces like the climatic standoff in a battleship graveyard featuring ninjas(?!). Peckinpah confidently does it in style, but also with ticker. Along for the ride is a top-notch ensemble cast featuring the likes of James Caan, Arthur Hill, Bo Hopkins, Burt Young, Robert Duvall, Gig Young and Mako. While I would say it was terribly overlong and ponderous, but I was still gripped due to Caan's enigmatically likable, but hardened performance. Watching his character go through the recovery stages after his serious injuries, fuelled by revenge and pushing himself to be fit again to carry out his job. You can't help but feel for him and want to see him succeed. The chemistry between Caan and the classy Duvall early on in the film offers some amusement. Even some scenes with the laconic Burt Young offer a laugh. Then there's the unpredictable Hopkins. Peckinpah makes great use of the San Francisco locations and long-time collaborator Jerry Fielding composes the thundering music score. Bold, macho and gritty entertainment even though it has uneven plotting it provides the big bangs and chop-suey in its ludicrous format. "You just retired Mike. Enjoy it"

Still, better than so many other pretentious attempts.Peckinpah still made one more masterpiece after this film (Iron Cross) and one more eclectic trash (Osterman Weekend).Killer Elite is full of moral preaching before SPOILER the last showdown on the ship. Bo Hopkins (as Jerome Miller) and James Caan (as Mike Locken) exchange bursts of criticism of CIA, and they can't hide that they were being bored. But Peckinpah was tired. Plot wasn't plausible enough. Even self-parodying of the great scene from Wild Bunch (rifles on the roof) only reveals boredom and lack of new ideas.The best moments in the film we owe to Bo Hopkins (pity SPOILER OF AN ANOTHER FILM he had to die in so early stage of "Wild Bunch"!), and the highlight of the film is hilarious dialog on the bridge between Mike Locken (James Caan) and Jerome Miller (Bo Hopkins), when a policeman stops their car, full of explosives and weapons. They are waiting the clumsy police officer who might search the vehicle, and James Caan asks Bo Hopkins what he's got in the car. "Bombs, detonators, shotguns, ammunition...", answers Bo Hopkins. James Caan then asks: "Is there in this car that can't mutilate, murder or blow people in explosion?" Bo Hopkins answers with an insane smile: "Everything is lethal" Even editing of the final showdown is slower then usual for Peckinpah.A glimpse of a talent we can see in the scene of disabled Mike Locken, when he tries Chinese tai chi exercises and the subsequent rejection of his former CIA superiors. Nice touch of 1970's, anyways.

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.