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Released by: Imprint
Released on: December 28th, 2022.
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Cast: James Caan, Robert Duvall, Arthur Hill, Bo Hopkins, Gig Young
Year: 1975
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The Killer Elite – Movie Review:
When Sam Peckinpah made The Killer Elite, he was coming off of Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia and while that film has gone on to be recognized as a masterpiece in certain circles, it did not do particularly well at the box office. Peckinpah's personal problems had become the stuff of legend and his career was certainly not at its peak anymore. He needed some commercial success to keep going and took on this project in an attempt to make what was essentially a mainstream action film. While this is hardly the picture he's remembered for, when approached on that level it's an entertaining picture with a good cast and some well-crafted action set pieces.
The movie starts off at the tail end of what looks to have been a wild party (look for Euro sex-bomb Uschi Digard in a quick uncredited cameo!) complete with topless women and pot smoking where we meet two men, Mike Locken (James Caan) and George Hansen (Robert Duvall), who have just finished up a job. Mike just wants to hang out in bed with his girl but George gets him up, whether he likes it or not. They have to go. Not too much later, while these two agents are doing their thing, Locken is double-crossed by Hansen who tries to assassinate him. It doesn't work, but it does leave him injured and he spends quite a bit of time in rehab trying to get back to his old self, at least physically, with some help from some fancy looking medical braces and such. He understandably carries a whole lot of resentment over this but does what he can to focus his anger and better his abilities through his martial arts training. Eventually those above him figure he's ready and he's called to start his next job: some nefarious terrorist types are planning to assassinate a high ranking Japanese official and the CIA needs Locken to keep the guy safe until they can get him out of the country. If he's going to be murdered, let it happen on Japanese soil. Meanwhile, who has been paid to off the poor guy by the same guys courting Locken? Hansen, of course.
As Locken goes about putting his team together to smuggle the Japanese politician and his family out of San Francisco to safe keeping, Hansen sets about with his plans, all of which could lead to the inevitable opportunity for Locken to get revenge…
The Killer Elite is convoluted to a fault and it lacks the personality of many of Peckinpah's better received and better regarded pictures but as far as seventies conspiracy/revenge movies go, it's pretty entertaining stuff. The story, from Stirling Silliphant and Marc Norman based on the novel Monkey In The Middle by Robert Syd Hopkins (as Robert Rostand), fails to really flesh out the characters and their respective motivations as well as we want it to. That said, the movie goes at a decent pace and as this is a Peckinpah film, not surprisingly it dishes out some nicely choreographed action set pieces. Filmed on location in and around San Francisco we get some fantastic location photography showing off everything from the Bay Area to a navy yard full of mothballed war ships to name only a few. If the story occasionally loses its way, and it does, you can at least take solace and enjoy the visuals. There are some decent moments of effective humor in here too, including the fairly infamous scene in which a cop is handed some active explosives featured in the movie's trailer.
The film is also fairly performance driven, and in that regard it is quite successful. We never get to know Locken or Hansen as well as we should to completely understand them but this doesn't stop Caan and Duvall from delivering fine work here. Each of the two gets a very distinct personality, with Locken a bit of a philandering type and Hansen very much all business all the time. This is solidified in a scene the two actors share in which Hansen explains to an appropriately pissed off Locken that he only did what he did for the money. This scene gives both actors the opportunity do what they do so well and play these tough, hardened men as well as the material will allow them. Peckinpah is also lucky enough to have some solid supporting players here too. Burt Young, immortalized by his work in the Rocky films, does well in the film as do both Bo Hopkins and Gig Young, both playing different agents involved in the plot. Instantly recognizable Japanese character actor Mako also pops up in the film as the assassination target and he too does well in his role.
The film starts off strong enough but as the movie moves towards its finish, it throws the already dicey character development out the window in favor of, well, ninjas and fighting. Normally this is all well and good, and the ninjas and fighting do entertain, but the film lacks the type of substance you expect from the best of the director's work. The Killer Elite is not a complete misfire by any stretch and absolutely worth seeing and even re-evaluating for Peckinpah fans, it’s just not a classic.
The Killer Elite – Blu-ray Review:
The original version of The Killer Elite arrives on region free Blu-ray from Imprint Films in its original 2.35.1 widescreen aspect ratio in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. This is a really nicely shot film and that becomes even more apparent in high definition. Detail is quite strong here and the movie is pretty close to pristine in that there's no real print damage to note. Grain is present but never overpowering or distracting and both skin tones and color reproduction fair very well here. Black levels aren't quite reference quality but they're solid and there are no obvious issues with any obvious noise reduction or edge enhancement to complain about.
The only audio option provided is a 24-bit LPCM 2.0 Mono mix with removable English closed captioning also provided. The audio quality here is good, with Jerry Fielding's under-appreciated score springing to life with the added clarity afforded it by the lossless track. There are no problems with any hiss or distortion and while the single channel mix is understandably limited in what it can do, there's good depth here and the dialogue is always easy to understand.
Extras for this release start off with a new audio commentary by Sam Peckinpah expert Mike Siegel, who talks about his thoughts on the movie and offers up plenty of anecdotes and stories about the director and the cast members. He notes that the film had some censorship problems and that the version on the first disc is the full, uncut version of the film, and he also talks about the film's budget, where Peckinpah's career was at this point in his life, Peckinpah's relationship with Martin Baum, the source novel that the movie is based on, the inclusion of martial arts in the movie, thoughts on what works and what doesn't in the movie, Peckinpah's love of writing memos to people, the quality of the cinematography in the picture, the score and the effects work, how the acting rises above some of the film's goofier elements, location work and lots more.
Carried over from the out of print Twilight Time edition is a commentary track from Peckinpah experts Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and Nick Redman. There's a lot of great information here and these guys not only know their stuff but have an obvious passion for the material. The track delves deep into the history of the film as they discuss Peckinpah's involvement with producer Mike Medavoy who got him the job on this film for United Artists. They also talk about what Caan, Duvall and the rest of the cast were put through on the film, the commercial viability of the picture, what went into some of the action set pieces and quite a bit more.
The disc also includes a host of new featurettes, the first of which is The Passion & Poetry Project – Mike Siegel And His Works On Sam Peckinpah, a forty-three minute with Siegel speaking about learning how Peckinpah died in 1984 and the impact that the man's work had on his own life. From here, Siegal details how he came to love Peckinpah's films in his younger days, managing to see films like Convoy and Cross Of Iron and becoming a fan of Peckinpah and wanting to know more about the director and the people he worked with. As the piece goes on, he talks about the importance of his mother in developing his love of film as a teenager, how and why he came to start making documentary projects about Peckinpah's life and times, meeting John Woo and Robert Rodriguez, getting the Passion & Poetry project moving and all of the travel that he had to do to get that done, getting help from Peckinpah's daughter and the different adventures that he had doing the various interviews for the documentary.
Passion & Poetry: Peckinpah Anecdotes features interview clips with Kris Kristofferson, Ernest Borgnine, James Coburn, David Warner, Ali MacGraw, L.Q. Jones, Bo Hopkins, R.G. Armstrong and Isela Vega and it runs twenty-six minutes. It's a really enjoyable piece that is simply made up of the different interviewees sharing some stories and memories of what it was like working with Peckinpah. There are stories here about what he was like on set, taking direction from him, hanging out with him, drinking with him, and his human side. These stories don't sugar coat the problems that Peckinpah had in his life but it's clear that, problems or not, most of the people that worked with him that are interviewed here really liked the guy in spite of the difficulties that could arise when working with him – maggots in the food, fights on set, stints in jail, drunken rampages and gun fights and more. There’s also a lot of talk about what a talented filmmaker he was, his ability to improvise during a shoot and how he had a knack for bringing out the best in his actors.
Film Historian Kim Newman On The Killer Elite is a new piece where Newman spends twenty-three minutes going over the history of the film, discussing where Peckinpah's life was personally and professionally. He goes over how the decline of the popularity of the western movie affected the director's career, bridges that had been burned with different studios up to this point, themes and ideas that Peckinpah had made up to this point in time, how Peckinpah's bad reputation harmed his career (Charles Bronson didn't want to work with an alcoholic, for example), the Robert Rodstand book that the movie is based on, Peckinpah's use of cocaine during the making of the movie, some of the subtext that can be pulled out of the film in terms of how it plays with kung-fu movies and Hollywood productions and plenty more.
Elaine On Elite is a new interview with Hollywood stylist Elaine Bowerbank running twelve minutes. She talks about working as Caan's hairdresser on the movie and how she got the job, what all was involved in making sure Caan's hair was right each day, getting along with the hair and makeup team, what Caan was like to work with, dealing with the unions and the budget on the film and not having much to do with Peckinpah while working on the movie.
San Francisco Plays Itself is a new video essay by filmmaker Daniel Kremer running fifteen minutes that compares some of the San Francisco locations from the movie to how they appear today. We also get to see a few of the locations used in The Laughing Policeman and The Line-Up.
The disc also includes Passion And Poetry: Sam's Killer Elite, a twenty-eight minute featurette taken from Mike Siegel feature length documentary Passion and Poetry: The Ballad of Sam Peckinpah. This is made up of plenty of archival photos and behind the scenes clips as well as interview segments recorded with actress Isela Vega and actors Bo Hopkins (who is keen to talk about working with 'Jimmy Cann' and 'Bobby Duvall'), Ernest Borgnine, James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson. Also on hand are Whitey Hughes, who handled stunts for a few of Peckinpah's films, as well as his friend Katy Haber and his sister, Fern Lea Peter. It covers much of the same ground as the commentary but the added input of the people who knew and worked with the director as well as the archival materials definitely gives the piece its own merits and it's quite an interesting watch.
Also included on the disc is the film's isolated score in DTS-HD format, separate archival photo galleries that cover promoting the film, shooting the film and general stills from the film, an original theatrical trailer alongside some TV and radio spots for The Killer Elite,
The second disc in limited edition two-disc Blu-ray set includes a 1080p high-definition presentation of the original theatrical cut of the movie in AVC encoded 1080p framed at 2.35.1 and with 16-bit English LPCM 1.0 Mono audio and optional English Subtitles. This version runs 1:56:07 as compared to the longer uncut version at 2:03:22.
It's also worth pointing out the nice packaging that Imprint has provided for this release. Each of the two discs in the set has its own clear Blu-ray case featuring unique artwork on each cover sleeve. Both of these cases fit inside a nice, sturdy, top-loading hardbox featuring some great vintage artwork on the front and a very cool and very dramatic picture of Caan on the reverse with a quote from Peckinpah about it - "The end of a picture is always an end of a life."
The Killer Elite - The Final Word:
While The Killer Elite may not by top tier Peckinpah, it’s still a pretty entertaining seventies conspiracy thriller with some strong acting and impressive action set pieces. If it doesn’t hit its potential, it’s well-worth seeing just for Caan and Duvall alone. The two-disc Blu-ray edition from Imprint is impressive, giving the film a very nice presentation with a lot of extra features that do a very nice job of exploring the film’s background and the history of the people that made it, with an emphasis on the movie’s notorious director. Recommended!