Randonnée pour un tueur

Shoot To Kill (GB title: Deadly Pursuit) is a lively, fairly intelligent action film which benefits from good character development. Many post-1980 action films suffer because they are empty spectacles, full of boring stock characters and visually impressive/emotionally redundant stunts. However, this one is different. There are eight main characters (all of them well-realized) as well as a fundamentally exciting plot, sharp dialogue, and a spectacular mountain setting.

FBI agent Warren Stanton (Sidney Poitier) is desperate to track down a dangerous jewel thief following a botched hostage situation. He suspects that the thief has joined a five-man hiking party in the rugged wilderness near Spokane. Unfortunately, there is no way of contacting the hiking guide Sarah (Kirstie Alley) to warn her that a dangerous killer is among her group. Instead, Stanton has to put his trust in another mountain guide, rough and tough Jonathan Knox (Tom Berenger). The unlikely pair pursue the hiking group, hoping to reach them before the killer strikes again.

The film moves at a good pace. Interest is generated on several different fronts: the volatile relationship between Stanton and Knox; the intriguing guessing-game as to which member of the hiking party is actually the jewel thief/killer; the "race-against-time" tension (as soon as the hikers have entered Canada, the killer could dispose of them at any time). There is spectacular action, but it is not emphasised to such an overwhelming degree that other story threads are lost. Shoot To Kill is a very commendable action film and it is a pity that more films in the genre are not up to the same standard.

Warren Stantin (Sidney Poitier) is an FBI agent in San Francisco. A hostage situation goes wrong. The killer escapes with a bag of diamonds. Stantin follows a similar killing to the wilderness of Washington. He suspects the killer had surreptitiously joined a fishing expedition guided by Sarah Rennell (Kirstie Alley). Her partner Jonathan Knox (Tom Berenger) sets out to follow and is forced to take the city slicker G-man with him.

It's Sidney Poitier's first movie in over a decade. He hasn't lost a step. He is surprisingly funny at times. The fish out of water aspect is solid and fun. His most memorable scene is probably scaring away the bear. The killer is kept a mystery in a good way. That half is a fun little mystery. I would have preferred ending the movie in the woods. There are a couple of good ideas in the city. The car chase is nothing special but solidly 80's action. There is a good switch-a-roo that ties in with an earlier moment. I don't know about keeping Kristie Alley a hostage all through that part of the movie. It makes much more sense for the killer to kill any possible witnesses once he escaped to the city. Kristie becomes a hinderance during the escape. That's all the more reason to end the movie in the woods. The killer is incentivized to keep his hostage alive as long as he needs a guide. Overall, this is a solid 80's action thriller.

Deadly Pursuit certainly has it's fair share of problems, but as an entertaining little action thriller; it stands up well to criticism, as while some of the dialogue, situations and character drawings don't exactly ring true; the film moves quickly and director Roger Spottiswoode does a good job of ensuring that the film is easy viewing and never becomes boring. Deadly Pursuit is something of a film of two halves; it starts off as a gritty cop thriller, and then mutates into a survivalist themed chase movie. The plot is fairly standard at first, as we witness a man being caught robbing a diamond store. The plot thickens when, after some interrogation from the arresting officers, it turns out that the thief actually owns the store! We then learn that he's stealing the diamonds to pay a kidnapper for the release of his wife. FBI agent Warren Stantin manages to chase the kidnapper down, but he gets away with the diamonds and flees into a forest near Canada; thus meaning that Agent Stantin must chase the killer into the woods, with the help of a rugged local who knows the area.

The film does have a number of problems - sometimes, for example, it seems to just jump from one scene to the next without much in the way of a connection. This does keep things moving, but the film can feel a bit disjointed because of it. Still, the plot flows fairly well and enough different angles are created to keep things interesting. The film features a decent cast, headed up by Sidney Poitier. Poitier's character changes a lot through the film, and while the actor sometimes looks a bit silly, he does seem to manage this well. He is joined by Tom Berenger, who also gives a decent performance in his role, while the rest of the cast is filled out by the likes of Clancy Brown, Kirstie Alley and Andrew Robinson. Perhaps the best thing about this movie is the fact that we don't know who the killer is for so long, which builds suspense - and mystery, and the film also carries off a nice twist little twist with the choice of actors surrounding the killer. Overall, I can't really say that Deadly Pursuit is one of the best films of its type - but it's certainly a very good thriller and I recommend watching it!

I haven't watched this since I was 15 years old in 1990 and I liked it then and 30 odd years later it's still a good watch. Much better than action/thrillers being made these days.

After an eleven year absence from the screen, Sidney Poitier chose to return in an action/adventure film where he plays an FBI agent in search of a killer.

He's got good reason to want this guy bad. His quarry is ruthless and kills without mercy. Poitier loses a hostage and the ransom he's asked for. But some good detective work has traced the man to a remote part of the Pacific Northwest.

Where the perpetrator has killed again and joined a party of dry fly fishermen being guided by Kirstie Alley into the rugged mountains. No place for a city kid like Poitier, says mountaineer/hermit Tom Berenger who has the prerequisite skills to get the job done. These two are forced into an alliance of inconvenience.

The best thing I liked about Shoot To Kill is the guessing game we play for the identity of the perpetrator. Any one of the five men in Kirstie Alley's party could have been the killer. Look at the cast list and you'll recognize a few names who've played some pretty loathsome villains in the past. The identity is revealed suddenly and quite shockingly.

What I didn't like with Shoot To Kill is the fact that the final confrontation with the perpetrator is in big city Vancouver where he's escaped with Alley. He needed her in the woods, not any longer, she should have wound up dead. And Berenger and Poitier should have confronted him in the woods.

That script decision made the climax a rather ordinary one that you see in a whole lot of police chase films. Still all the players do fine here, my favorite being Kirstie Alley as the woods smart guide.