( There are Spoilers) Sam Peckinpah's very confusing and convoluted Cold War film that has to do with murder betrayal and revenge and that really has nothing to do with the Cold War at all. The movie is about a power-crazed US civil servant CIA Director Maxwell Danford ,Burt Lancaster, who feels that his power will be seriously compromised by super patriotic and very popular TV political talk show host of "Face to Face" John Tanner, Rutger Hauer.
Danford who had CIA field agent Lawrence Fassett's,John Hurt, wife murdered when he was an agent in Communist Poland to keep her big mouth shut about her husbands business there. It seemed that she was an alcoholic and couldn't keep quite when she was intoxicated. Danford used the Soviet KGB to do the "Job" on her without them, as well as Fassett, even knowing that he was behind her death.
Danford Comes up with this master-stroke in using Fassett to do in three of Tanner's best friends at their annual "Osterman Weekend" meeting at his home then finish off Tanner himself. That would not only shut him up but discredit him and make him look like an unstable lunatic in the eyes of his adoring fans and the American public. Fassett has Tanner convinced that the three Osterman's, as they call themselves, Osterman Tremayne & Cardone, Craig T. Nelson Denniss Hooper & Chris Sarandon, are working with the dreaded KGB to undermined the USA.
The doctored tapes that Fassett showed Tanner of his friends treachery were actually video tapes of them funneling money to Switzerland to keep from paying taxes which is a crime but not at all treason. Tanner goes along with Fassett to set up his friends, together with their wives, at his home during the "Osterman Weekend" and have them arrested, or better yet terminated, to keep them from doing any further damage to America.
The movie "The Osterman Weekend" goes on with a series of explosions and shootings as well as a number of Fassett's CIA men getting shot and killed by crossbows. Fassett himself later found out that he was after the wrong people, after he had most of them killed, in the death of his wife but that it was his boss the well known Mister American Patriot himself CIA Chief Maxwell Danford who had the KGB do it in order to cover up his connection in the murder.
The strange and freak-out ending has Tanner, now back at his TV studios, exposing Danford to the American people as to just what a phony he really. Tanner does his with his special guest, via a TV hook-up at his hideout, Fassett telling all he knows about Danford and his squalid past to the shell socked audience.
Danford who after protesting his innocence and how he'll expose Fassett and his sponsor on the TV show "Face to Face" host John Tanner is then left with his mouth opened and looking like he got electrocuted or struck by a bolt of lighting. The ending got even more ridicules with Tanner doing something that even Superman could never do: be in two places at the same time.
Danford who had CIA field agent Lawrence Fassett's,John Hurt, wife murdered when he was an agent in Communist Poland to keep her big mouth shut about her husbands business there. It seemed that she was an alcoholic and couldn't keep quite when she was intoxicated. Danford used the Soviet KGB to do the "Job" on her without them, as well as Fassett, even knowing that he was behind her death.
Danford Comes up with this master-stroke in using Fassett to do in three of Tanner's best friends at their annual "Osterman Weekend" meeting at his home then finish off Tanner himself. That would not only shut him up but discredit him and make him look like an unstable lunatic in the eyes of his adoring fans and the American public. Fassett has Tanner convinced that the three Osterman's, as they call themselves, Osterman Tremayne & Cardone, Craig T. Nelson Denniss Hooper & Chris Sarandon, are working with the dreaded KGB to undermined the USA.
The doctored tapes that Fassett showed Tanner of his friends treachery were actually video tapes of them funneling money to Switzerland to keep from paying taxes which is a crime but not at all treason. Tanner goes along with Fassett to set up his friends, together with their wives, at his home during the "Osterman Weekend" and have them arrested, or better yet terminated, to keep them from doing any further damage to America.
The movie "The Osterman Weekend" goes on with a series of explosions and shootings as well as a number of Fassett's CIA men getting shot and killed by crossbows. Fassett himself later found out that he was after the wrong people, after he had most of them killed, in the death of his wife but that it was his boss the well known Mister American Patriot himself CIA Chief Maxwell Danford who had the KGB do it in order to cover up his connection in the murder.
The strange and freak-out ending has Tanner, now back at his TV studios, exposing Danford to the American people as to just what a phony he really. Tanner does his with his special guest, via a TV hook-up at his hideout, Fassett telling all he knows about Danford and his squalid past to the shell socked audience.
Danford who after protesting his innocence and how he'll expose Fassett and his sponsor on the TV show "Face to Face" host John Tanner is then left with his mouth opened and looking like he got electrocuted or struck by a bolt of lighting. The ending got even more ridicules with Tanner doing something that even Superman could never do: be in two places at the same time.