Monday, August 15, 2011

1975 - THE KILLER ELITE, semi incoherent spy thriller from Sam Peckinpah

Spy vs spy double cross junk with James Caan and Robert Duvall as secret agent buddies who are now on opposite sides in the world of cut throat espionage. 


The Killer Elite was directed by Sam Peckinpah who doesn't appear to have had much interest in telling a coherent story.  The performances are very lazy, in fact the whole film seems pretty lazy.  By this time in the 1970's this "dirty side of the spy business" had run it's course as a plot line, the lack of originally about The Killer Elite is it's most notable feature.


The film has some of  Sam Peckinpah's flourish with an action scene and as usual nobody has ever really figured out how to film and edit fight scenes in slow motion the way he can.  In The Killer Elite, Peckinpah adapts his action technique to the martial arts genre, the results are interesting but not as outstanding as they are in some of his other films.


The Killer Elite is probably more notable for the beginning of Peckinpah's decline as a film maker which ended with his final film The Osterman Weekend.

122 minutes, written by Stirling Silliphant.

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