a_chinn 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.

addictedtofilm 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.

Woodyanders Easygoing freelance special agent Mike Locken (an excellent and engaging performance by James Caan) gets severely wounded in both his knee and elbow after being double-crossed by his tough and shifty longtime friend and partner George Hansen (a typically fine Robert Duvall). After a long and painful recovery, Locken gets a gig to protect noble Asian politician Yuen Chung (well played by Mako) and a prime opportunity to exact revenge on Hansen. Director Sam Peckinpah, working from an edgy and convoluted script by Marc Norman and Stirling Silliphant, astutely captures a distinctly 70's post-Watergate atmosphere of dread, paranoia, and moral ambiguity while exploring his usual themes of ethics, friendship, loyalty, and betrayal. Peckinpah stages several bang-up action set pieces with his customary stylistic flair: a failed hit at an airport, a wild shoot-out and subsequent car chase on the streets of San Francisco, and the exciting climax at an empty ships' graveyard. Cann and Duvall both do sterling work in the lead roles; they receive able support from Arthur Hill as the duplicitous Cap Collins, Bo Hopkins as nutty live-wire gunman Jerome Miller, Gig Young as the gloomy Lawrence Weyburn, Burt Young as cynical cab driver Mac, and the lovely Tiana as Chung's feisty daughter Tommie. Kate Heflin brings a sweet and appealing warmth to her part as Locken's helpful and sympathetic nurse girlfriend Amy. Moreover, this picture pushes the PG rating as far as it can go: the starling moments of ferocious violence are pretty brutal and grisly and we even get a decent smidgen of tasty gratuitous female nudity (look fast for ubiquitous soft-core starlet Ushi Digard in a cool uncredited bit). Philip H. Lathrop's handsome widescreen cinematography makes neat occasional use of graceful fades and dissolves. Jerry Fielding provides an effectively varied and shivery score. While not one of Peckinpah's best-ever movies (the film suffers from an overlong running time and the narrative meanders quite a bit), it's still worth seeing for fans of Bloody Sam just the same.

jeremy3 Sam Peckinpah is considered the father of today's violent movies. Although, one comment I have heard is that at least he always did it with a morality. This was very evident in this film, and made one think. I like it when Burt Young's character says 'with all these public disturbance violations, you'll get 100 years'. That is refreshing and insightful. No modern filmmaker thinks about how ridiculous it is for some characters to be destroying everything in their way to get to the "bad guys". Later on, Burt Young's character says 'no modern government cares about the security of it's people'. Absolutely correct on that one! This movie was very realistic and had a lot of great scenery of the San Francisco area. It also shows how so many in the espionage business get tired of being used by all sides for money and power. The only drawback was the ending. Showing the ninjas slowly moving out of the shadows of the ship's hull was silly. I did like the scene where James Caan's character shot is boss enough so he would live, but be injured. He wanted to show his boss how lightly he treated human life, and what it really was like being disabled by service in espionage.