Elite de Assassinos

This Peckinpah thriller is poorly plotted, sometimes confusing and generally doesn't hit the mark. Peckinpah provides a few exciting action scenes, but the film is ultimately defeated by overlength. The very poor sound quality is another problem: it's often hard to understand parts of the dialogue. Decent performances.

To all the long-faced dimwits bemoaning the decidedly uncontentious tone of this picture, I've three words: Get a life! First off, the "The Killer Elite" is a rip-roaring gasser about the most offbeat assassins to ever walk the earth. Burt Young versus ninjas? James Caan and Robert Duvall serenading CIA safe houses? Where do I sign? Maybe some also bellow on about how watered-down "The Killer Elite" is amongst the Peckinpah pantheon, but I put this to you: how many "PG"-rated pictures include defectors getting their brains blown out, as sanguine life sprays the walls? Not many. Third off, the nihilistic corporate pecking order as portrayed in the film sums up the old "Alfredo Garcia" "no heroes" mentality quite nicely. Mako and Gig "Fred C. Dobbs" Young are there to party, Caan, Duvall, and Young seem to be having the time of their lives, so what are we waiting for? "Let's go bananas."

Killer Elite, The (1975)

** (out of 4)

Disappointing thriller from Sam Peckinpah has much of the director's style but very little else. In the film, Mike (James Caan) and George (Robert Duvall) are friends working for the same secret group of spies. While on a mission George decides to take a pay-out so he shoots the person they're supposed to be guarding and he also shoots Mike putting him out of commission. As you'd expect, it doesn't take too long for both men to be facing each other down again. THE KILLER ELITE is a pretty much forgotten film by the director and it's easy to see why as there's very little entertainment to be had here. The most disappointing thing is that the director was given a pretty strong cast to work with but in the end the story is just too weak and moves way too slow to be very entertaining. I will say that the film starts off at a pretty good pace with the introduction of the two lead characters followed by a hilarious joke involving Mike going to bed with a certain woman and George "knowing" something about her. The big double-cross was also stylishly done and of course it features a head being shot up in that Peckinpah slow-motion that you'd expect. From this point on the movie just tries to be too smart for its own good as there are several double-crosses that take place but after a while you just really grow tired of how ridiculous the film is getting so you just tune out and wait for the ending. Again, if you're a Peckinpah junkie then you'll be happy to know that there are several bits from the director including all the slow-motion action scenes. Each time someone dies they do it in slow motion and there's no doubt that the director, even at this stage of his career, knew how to stage an action scene. Both Caan and Duvall are in fine form and their chemistry together makes one wish that they were together more often. The before mentioned joke in the car works perfectly as the actors really make you seem as they're friends. The supporting cast includes familiar faces like Mako, Bo Hopkins, Arthur Hill, Burt Young and Gig Young. THE KILLER ELITE runs just over two-hours and sadly most of this time the viewer is just bored and wishing it would end. There simply aren't enough good moments to make the film worth viewing to anyone outside those Peckinpah fans.

I was drawn to The Killer Elite by a still of James Caan brandishing a walking stick at a ninja; a crippled Caan versus ninjas could surely only mean fun, especially with Sam Peckinpah behind the camera. Sadly, the scene isn't anywhere near as bad-ass as it sounds on paper, and to get there we have endure an awful lot of sluggish exposition that will most likely disappoint the majority of the director's fans.

The film opens explosively enough, with Mike Locken (Caan) and George Hansen (Robert Duvall) completing a job for ComTeg, a private agency contracted by the C.I.A. to handle work of a more 'sensitive' nature. Locken and Hansen, friends as well as colleagues, are then tasked with protecting a defector, but things take an unexpected turn when Hansen, who has been bought out by a rival group, executes their ward and then turns his gun on Locken, shooting him in the arm and leg.

Critically wounded, Locken is rushed to hospital and undergoes emergency surgery followed by months of intensive physiotherapy. Against all odds, Locken recuperates to the point where he is once again able to work, driven by the idea of taking revenge on his old buddy Hansen.

With Locken's gradual rehabilitation taking up the bulk of the movie, The Killer Elite is remarkably devoid of the brutal violence and slow-motion bloodshed that one associates with Peckinpah, with even a machine gun shootout in a crowded street resulting in only one dead body. Worse still, the ninja showdown that had first attracted my attention comes right at the end of the film and consists of uninspired and poorly choreographed fight action featuring some of the most inept ninjas imaginable.

Apparently, the film was made by Peckinpah while he was experiencing the new-found pleasures of cocaine, which goes a long way to explain why it is such a mess.

Here's a Peckinpah movie that starts out really good but falls apart in the last third. It's a story about high-level contract killers and mercenaries hired out in secret by the CIA. The story investigates the friendship between Mike Locken (James Caan) and George Hansen (Robert Duvall), two of the high-class mercenaries working to protect VIPs and radical international diplomats.

The early character development is good, the dialog and accents are all pretty enjoyable on the ears, the camaraderie between the mercenaries is fun to watch (you don't see chemistry like this in action movies anymore!) and the action scenes -- as expected of Peckinpah -- are intense and well thought-out.

There is a considerable amount of hand-to-hand combat on display here. Some of the dojo scenes with Karate/Judo stuff are not bad, but not totally amazing either. It's cool that Peckinpah wanted to include this stuff, but why would high level secret operatives train in Gendai (modern, sportified, public, organized) Japanese martial arts? I thought that was pretty hokey.

And then we have the real problem: later in the film the bad guys are a bunch of ninjas. Ninjas, huh? I understand that the movie is kinda tongue-in-cheek and is about unrealistically tough contract killers and so forth, but the cheesy ninja costumes and the poorly choreographed fight scenes with them (not to mention the abstract and borderline offensive duel regarding "honor") instantly date this movie and make it something of a novelty.

Peckinpah had serious substance abuse problems at this point and maybe that's what causes the weird pacing. Had this movie been shorter and ended at the end of the second third with a more concise message, it would've been pretty solid. It also could've developed some of the supporting characters more than it did.

Still, there are some pretty good things to be found here. Really good action scenes, some memorable characters and dialog, and some decent commentary on corrupt power-players who run politics and business. It's just too bad everyone involved seems to be on autopilot.