Sam Peckinpah directed some of the most violent yet most elegiac movies of the 60s and 70s if one accepts that these two adjectives are not a contradiction of terms. He will be long remembered for films like "The Wild Bunch", "Straw Dogs", "The Getaway", "Ride the High Country", and my own favourite amongst his gentler movies "The Ballad of Cable Hogue". One understands that he was a notorious drinker and all-round troublemaker and after the relative flop of "Convoy" back in 1978, he made no movies for five years until this, his last one. Unfortunately he was unable to end his career on a high note and he died a year later.
I've seen 'Osterman' before, but thought it was worth another go out of my respect for Peckinpah's earlier movies; while it had a few moments, it was still something of an incomprehensible mess. Based on a convoluted novel from author Robert Ludlum, we have CIA operative John Hurt, whose wife we have seen murdered in the opening scenes, approaching well-know TV interviewer Rutger Hauer to help him expose three of Hauer's best buddies who he claims are Russian spies; these friends are played by Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper, and Chris Sarandon. Since the four always meet for an annual weekend together, Hurt convinces Hauer to let him establish surveillance. As it turns out after a ridiculous amount of violence and death, the whole charade was an attempt by Hurt to gain revenge on CIA bigwig Burt Lancaster, whom he blames for his wife's murder. It's all horribly unsatisfying and one can only hope that the original book was easier to understand. I really wished old Sam could have faded away with a superior return to directing.
1 comment:
A rather shorter comment would be to say something like 'amusing rubbish' but I
am not sure that 'amusing' is a suitable adjective.
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