The Osterman Weekend (1983)

Just perfect...

Good start, but then it gets ruined

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

The Osterman Weekend was Sam Peckinpah's farewell film and as a final fadeout doesn't measure up to Ride The High Country, The Wild Bunch or Junior Bonner. But it seems to have its supporters.A Robert Ludlum spy novel is something I would think would appeal to a Sam Peckinpah as his kind of screen material. But he did adapt it as best he could to his own style.John Hurt is quite the puppetmaster here and he's planning some big time revenge for the CIA killing his wife whom they suspected of being a Soviet agent. None other than Burt Lancaster who as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency takes out of mothballs his characterization of James Mattoon Scott the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Seven Days In May.But part of that scheme is to use sensationalist TV newscaster Rutger Hauer to convince three friends of his and their wives to spend a weekend with him. The six are Craig T. Nelson, Chris Sarandon, and Dennis Hopper and wives Helen Shaver, Cassie Yates, and Meg Foster. It all starts out nice, but pretty soon the house which has every room bugged becomes a killing ground soon enough.I don't want to go into more detail as this does take quite a turn and neither Hurt or Lancaster have clean hands. And the people spending time on that Osterman weekend aren't Boy and Girl Scouts.Sam Peckinpah gets a pair of violence ballets into the film, first with a fight sequence between Hauer and Nelson and later a long involved sequence in a swimming pool where Hauer and Nelson are held prisoner there by machine gun fire until a most interesting rescue.I'm willing to bet that Ludlam's original story was far more cerebral than what Peckinpah gives us. Still for admirers of this director this should satisfy them.

It's Sam Peckinpah's last film, and as a fan of this brilliant, troubled man, I wanted it to be a good one to go out on. What I got instead is another of his problem pictures, an interesting premise and eye-raising performances done in by a loss of focus.John Tanner (Rutger Hauer) is a TV interviewer given an unpleasant assignment by CIA operative Lawrence Fassett (John Hurt): Confront a group of college friends with evidence they are working for a KGB operative named Mikalovich. An array of videotapes provided by Fassett demonstrates their culpability to Tanner. So he sets to work, his home the setting for a prearranged weekend gathering. If it works, a live interview with CIA Director Maxwell Danforth (Burt Lancaster) will be his reward.For Peckinpah, it was his first film in more than half-a-decade, and a chance to show he was still able to deliver a solid action film well after his gritty early-'70s peak. The CIA comes equipped with cool surveillance equipment and laser-sighted automatics. The Weekend itself, once it gets going, has a nice "Big Chill" vibe with paranoid undertones.So what goes wrong?It starts with a 40-minute intro that establishes the premise in clunky fashion. "I'm Cloak, you must be Dagger" Tanner says upon meeting Danforth, whom Lancaster plays with brio but not subtlety. "Being wrong is not nearly as important as not admitting it, not these days," he tells one Company weasel, and acts throughout as the kind of clod you wouldn't put in charge of a shoe store, let alone the CIA.Then we get to the Weekend itself, with Tanner's college friends taking center stage. Each has their quirks. Osterman (Craig T. Nelson) is a very cool TV producer who describes himself as "a nihilistic anarchist who lives on residuals". Nelson is great fun, though the rest of the group, including Dennis Hopper, gets lost in the mix. Only Helen Shaver's turn as a coked-out floozy stands out, as much for her gratuitous nude scenes as for her entertaining freak outs.Sappy lite-jazz music by Lalo Schifrin underscores a lack of suspense. Hauer's Dutch accent keeps creeping in like Nastassja Kinski's, and his fragile relationship with his bow-toting wife (Meg Foster) isn't developed any more than those with his once-merry, now-sullen Berkeley chums.The actual jigsaw puzzle we get here is indifferently assembled and seems at end a few pieces short. At one point Tanner hears Osterman on tape tell his friends "Let's go to our friend John Tanner's house and set him up". Tanner doesn't take this kindly, reasonably enough, yet what Osterman may have meant is never explained. A lot of threads are pulled out this way only to be left floating in the breeze.John Coquillon's cinematography does capture something the rest of the film flails at, a sense of mystery and foreboding. Hurt's tortured performance as Fassett is nicely underplayed, watching beady-eyed between sips of wine from a china cup as the gears shift into play. And Nelson does crack me up, as in one scene which finds him running for cover."It'd be nice if we had weapons!""We do!" he is told. "Bows!""Bows?" Osterman replies. "That's keen!"In the end, we get a wrap-up lecture about the pervading influence of television and how this all was, as one character puts it, "just another episode in this snuff soap opera we're all in." Peckinpah supposedly hated this script, only using it because he needed the film, but I think those sad words represent his actual mindset all-too-well. Distrait, somewhat lethargic, and depressing, "The Osterman Weekend" gives us lots of clues but no answers as to where Sam fell off.

Sam Peckinpah's final film is a very funny, always intriguing and top-notch cast espionage-thriller. The plot is confusing right from the outset, its difficult to understand all the 'inside'-information we're getting early on, for so becoming immediately involved with the characters - I don't know why I should care for these people when I don't know what they're doing or saying. Much of this problem comes from the dialog, which seemingly is pulled right out of the Ludlum-novel and is one-upped into quasi-intelligence, but it's also the chopped editing (common knowledge for any Peckinpah fan) that the director used so effectively earlier, which sadly fails here. The acting chops are somewhat outlandish, especially the occasionally ridiculous John Hurt and the seemingly careless Dennis Hopper, and from time to another you don't know which one to take seriously or not. The action scenes are typically Peckinpah aesthetic, though some of the scenes where they're inquired are either completely illogical or plain phony. It may not be the best of directing swan-songs in film history, but it's nevertheless highly enjoyable and fun to watch.

The poster reads; "What would you do if a total stranger proved to you that your three closest friends were Soviet agents?" Then you see that this is based on a Robert Ludlum bestseller. Then you see a to-die-for cast and the director of all this is Sam Peckinpah. Still, "The Osterman Weekend" doesn't gel all that well.It's very confusing all the way. Stylistically, this flick is all over the place, with some trademark Peckinpah visuals that really feel out of place. The characters are total bores, each and every one and when the audience doesn't care for them it's hard to empathize with their plight.The actors are pretty solid though. John Hurt is appropriately crazy as the villain, Craig T. Nelson pretty effective as the no-nonsense leader of the pack (Osterman himself) and Helen Shaver is good as a drug addicted nymph. Others are OK but sadly Hauer is miscast as the hero, he's simply so much better at playing villains.Ironcially, the story behind "The Osterman Weekend" is a lot more interesting than the film itself. This was Peckinpah's last feature and he went through a lot to finish it, only to have his version somewhat altered by studio execs. Peckinpah's version can be seen by way of a horrible VHS transfered copy but the difference isn't all that huge.Still, there's something about the flick that begs repeat viewings. Everyone has a few guilty favorites and "The Osterman Weekend" is one of mine. There's something about the isolated setting, the cat and mouse game (although not played to it's full potential) between Hauer and Hurt and the pool scene is just terrific. Also, the scene where Hurt pretends to be a weatherman is simply hilarious.Plus the sight of Meg Foster with that crossbow is the coolest poster I've ever seen.