Sam Peckinpah is one of my favorite directors. I'll always see him as a visionary maverick responsible for crafting some of the most enjoyable movies I've ever seen. His The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia are among my favorite films. His last film, The Osterman Weekend, is something of a mixed bag. On the positive side, it has several good action set pieces that are very reminiscent of the other films I've mentioned. Scenes of bullets and arrows flying through the air and a particularly brutal fight scene with a bat filmed in slow-motion remind me of Peckinpah's glory days. Unfortunately, there's a plot in there that gets in the way of the fun. I've seen The Osterman Weekend twice now and I'm as confused about some of the events in the movie as I was the first time I saw it. I don't know if it was just Peckinpah being stubborn, but it feels unnecessarily confusing. There are plot points that go nowhere, plot holes big enough to drive the proverbial truck through, and plot twists that don't work. After a good set-up, the movie simply loses its way. A script that didn't try so hard to be clever and secretive and some judicious editing might have made The Osterman Weekend a winner.
75 Reviews
The Last Hurrah of Bloody Sam
reelreviewsandrecommendations15 March 2023
John Tanner is a controversial journalist who makes it his business to hold truth to power on his television show, exposing government corruption wherever and whenever he can. As he is preparing for a weekend get together with three of his closest friends at his lavish California estate, Tanner is contacted by a CIA agent named Laurence Fassett. It transpires that Fassett and the agency believe Tanner's friends are part of a Soviet spy network, and they think he can get them to defect. As the weekend rolls on, suspicions become raised on all sides, and- as the lines between truth, fiction, loyalty and betrayal are irrevocably blurred- the question arises: just who is manipulating whom?
Directed by Sam Peckinpah and based on Robert Ludlum's novel of the same name, 'The Osterman Weekend' is a well-acted thriller that rises above its source material, though seems a sad swansong for such a visionary director. Screenwriters Ian Masters and Alan Sharp have injected some much-needed energy and cohesion into Ludlum's convoluted tale, transforming it into a parable about the power of television as a tool of propaganda, instead of the weak meditation on revenge and cold-war paranoia that it originally was.
Unlike in the book, Masters and Sharp use 'The Osterman Weekend' to explore how the media shapes narratives, changes meanings and influences opinions through editing and censorship. Through Tanner's program and the machinations of the CIA, they examine the idea that belief is generated through television- in other words, if people see it on TV, they believe it. While not a particularly profound or original notion, it lends the narrative more weight, as well as providing additional dramatic tension throughout.
This is not to say that 'The Osterman Weekend' should be lauded as a masterpiece, only that it asks more interesting questions than Ludlum's novel, and has a clearer message at its center. Masters and Sharp have not made Ludlum's awkward dialogue any more eloquent, nor has the inclusion of a new character and a new ending helped matters any. The story is still inherently flawed, and bad post-production and editing without Peckinpah's involvement means the finished product is a tad schizophrenic in terms of tone and content- though it is still inarguably easier to follow and more assured than its source material.
'The Osterman Weekend' reunites Peckinpah with cinematographer John Coquillon, whose talents the director had utilized for 'Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid' and 'Straw Dogs'. Coquillon does fine work that fits well within Peckinpah's oeuvre, featuring much of the director's trademark slow-motion violence. By incorporating CCTV footage from multiple monitors, Coquillon shows us different perspectives on events throughout, bolstering Tanner's paranoia and uncertainty about the reality of his situation. Odd angles and lighting are used to heighten this paranoia, though the overall visual aesthetic is one far less stylized than Peckinpah's 'The Wild Bunch', or Coquillon's work on 'Witchfinder General,' adding a sense of authenticity to proceedings.
Also contributing to the sense of paranoia and authenticity are the cast, many of whom deliver nuanced performances that keep audiences unsure of their motivations and loyalties. Rutger Hauer is charismatic and commanding as Tanner, showing a side of his personality he had not yet done through his villainous roles in Hollywood films. Craig T. Nelson does sterling work as Osterman, making him charming, yet morally mysterious. Dennis Hopper fades into the background somewhat, though has some good scenes with Helen Shaver, who is consistently excellent as his drugged-out wife, displaying much emotional perspicuity.
In his case, the great Burt Lancaster seems bored as the director of the CIA, apparently disliking Peckinpah's interpretation of the character and direction. For their parts, Chris Sarandon, Meg Foster and Cassie Yates are competent but generally underused. The real stand-out is John Hurt, who is spellbinding as Fassett, all but stealing the picture. Convincing, conniving and complex, Hurt transforms the one-note caricature of Ludlum's book into the most interesting character in the film, and it's a joy any time he's on screen.
Sam Peckinpah's last film, 'The Osterman Weekend' is far from his best work. Though it is well acted and features fine cinematography, the story leaves a lot to be desired, and post-production work without the involvement of the director leaves the finished product lacking consistency and coherence. Though its indictment of television as a mode of propaganda is still timely, it is not a particularly subtle or profound work in that regard. To conclude, though it has its moments, Bloody Sam deserved a better last hurrah than this.
Directed by Sam Peckinpah and based on Robert Ludlum's novel of the same name, 'The Osterman Weekend' is a well-acted thriller that rises above its source material, though seems a sad swansong for such a visionary director. Screenwriters Ian Masters and Alan Sharp have injected some much-needed energy and cohesion into Ludlum's convoluted tale, transforming it into a parable about the power of television as a tool of propaganda, instead of the weak meditation on revenge and cold-war paranoia that it originally was.
Unlike in the book, Masters and Sharp use 'The Osterman Weekend' to explore how the media shapes narratives, changes meanings and influences opinions through editing and censorship. Through Tanner's program and the machinations of the CIA, they examine the idea that belief is generated through television- in other words, if people see it on TV, they believe it. While not a particularly profound or original notion, it lends the narrative more weight, as well as providing additional dramatic tension throughout.
This is not to say that 'The Osterman Weekend' should be lauded as a masterpiece, only that it asks more interesting questions than Ludlum's novel, and has a clearer message at its center. Masters and Sharp have not made Ludlum's awkward dialogue any more eloquent, nor has the inclusion of a new character and a new ending helped matters any. The story is still inherently flawed, and bad post-production and editing without Peckinpah's involvement means the finished product is a tad schizophrenic in terms of tone and content- though it is still inarguably easier to follow and more assured than its source material.
'The Osterman Weekend' reunites Peckinpah with cinematographer John Coquillon, whose talents the director had utilized for 'Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid' and 'Straw Dogs'. Coquillon does fine work that fits well within Peckinpah's oeuvre, featuring much of the director's trademark slow-motion violence. By incorporating CCTV footage from multiple monitors, Coquillon shows us different perspectives on events throughout, bolstering Tanner's paranoia and uncertainty about the reality of his situation. Odd angles and lighting are used to heighten this paranoia, though the overall visual aesthetic is one far less stylized than Peckinpah's 'The Wild Bunch', or Coquillon's work on 'Witchfinder General,' adding a sense of authenticity to proceedings.
Also contributing to the sense of paranoia and authenticity are the cast, many of whom deliver nuanced performances that keep audiences unsure of their motivations and loyalties. Rutger Hauer is charismatic and commanding as Tanner, showing a side of his personality he had not yet done through his villainous roles in Hollywood films. Craig T. Nelson does sterling work as Osterman, making him charming, yet morally mysterious. Dennis Hopper fades into the background somewhat, though has some good scenes with Helen Shaver, who is consistently excellent as his drugged-out wife, displaying much emotional perspicuity.
In his case, the great Burt Lancaster seems bored as the director of the CIA, apparently disliking Peckinpah's interpretation of the character and direction. For their parts, Chris Sarandon, Meg Foster and Cassie Yates are competent but generally underused. The real stand-out is John Hurt, who is spellbinding as Fassett, all but stealing the picture. Convincing, conniving and complex, Hurt transforms the one-note caricature of Ludlum's book into the most interesting character in the film, and it's a joy any time he's on screen.
Sam Peckinpah's last film, 'The Osterman Weekend' is far from his best work. Though it is well acted and features fine cinematography, the story leaves a lot to be desired, and post-production work without the involvement of the director leaves the finished product lacking consistency and coherence. Though its indictment of television as a mode of propaganda is still timely, it is not a particularly subtle or profound work in that regard. To conclude, though it has its moments, Bloody Sam deserved a better last hurrah than this.
The films of Sam Peckinpah. The last hurrah.
Captain_Couth29 August 2005
The Osterman Weekend (1983) was Sam Peckinpah's last film. Years of drug abuse (alcohol, pills etc..) took a devastating toll on the legendary film maker. Desperate for work, he took an uncredited second unit directing job with his buddy Don Siegal's swan song JINXED. He finally got the chance to direct a movie when he was given the job to try and adapt the complex and layered espionage spy thriller The Osterman Weekend. Not pleased with trying to bring to life a novel he really didn't care for, he did the job (albiet with mixed results).
Tanner (Rutger Hauer) is a talking head newsman. He has an eclectic group of friends (Chris Sarandon, Dennis Hopper and Crag T. Nelson). One day, Tanner is approached by a rogue C.I.A. named Fassett (John Hurt) agent to "keep an eye" on Osterman (Craig T, Nelson) because of his ties with certain "red" double agents. But Tanner knows Osterman and doesn't believe that he would be a traitor to his country. After a couple of attempts on his life, Tanner doesn't know who to trust. Is Osterman the traitor that Fassett claims to be? Who's telling the truth?
Not the way I wanted to see Sam Peckinpah end his career but hey, you play with the hand life deals you. People have complained about how confusing the movie is (have you read the book?). Considering with what he had to work with, I say that he did a fairly decent job.
Recommended for Sam Peckinpah fans.
Tanner (Rutger Hauer) is a talking head newsman. He has an eclectic group of friends (Chris Sarandon, Dennis Hopper and Crag T. Nelson). One day, Tanner is approached by a rogue C.I.A. named Fassett (John Hurt) agent to "keep an eye" on Osterman (Craig T, Nelson) because of his ties with certain "red" double agents. But Tanner knows Osterman and doesn't believe that he would be a traitor to his country. After a couple of attempts on his life, Tanner doesn't know who to trust. Is Osterman the traitor that Fassett claims to be? Who's telling the truth?
Not the way I wanted to see Sam Peckinpah end his career but hey, you play with the hand life deals you. People have complained about how confusing the movie is (have you read the book?). Considering with what he had to work with, I say that he did a fairly decent job.
Recommended for Sam Peckinpah fans.
Suspenseful movie though sometimes confusing and cold thriller with a top-drawer cast
ma-cortes10 August 2013
Action movie in Peckinpah style with tension , intrigue , thrills , gushing blood and violence . The one weekend of the year you won't want to miss. The host of an investigative news spectacle (Rutger Hauer,first major character in a Hollywood movie played by Dutch actor) is assigned a dangerous mission As TV show hosted by television journalist John Tanner is called "Face to Face" and he is convinced by a CIA operative (John Hurt was second billed) that the friends (Chris Sarandon , Dennis Hooper , Craig T Nelson) and wives (Helen Shaver ,Cassie Yates) he has invited to a weekend party are Russian spies from a secret organization . The name of the Soviet spy network was "Omega".
This actioner and suspenseful movie tells a convoluted and complicated tale of vendetta , espionage and treason . Interesting but slightly boring spy film , including an overly complex and confusing script , even though at times it is admittedly engrossing . The picture was made and released about eleven years after its source novel of the same name by Robert Ludlum had been first published in 1972 . Sam Peckinpah was fired as director during post-production. Others were Convoy and Ride the High County . When he refused to re-edit Osterman weekend after it was screened for a test audience and met with a confused and extremely mixed reaction. Producers took over the editing with the assistance of the editor , drastically altering opening and ending sequences. Mediocre and dark cinematography by John Coquillon , in fact , the picture involved a considerable amount of filming at night. It was filmed at a 1950s ranch located in upper Mandeville Canyon in the Hollywood Hills , it was a property once owned by Robert Taylor and has been frequently been known by the names the "Taylor Estate" . Anti-climatic soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin composed by means by synthesizer . Director Don Siegel, long time friend and mentor to Sam Peckinpah, recommended Lalo Schifrin as the film's composer. Schifrin had scored five of Siegel's movies ; composer Lalo Schifrin had to sit by Sam Peckinpah's sick bed in order to spot the film and decide which scenes did or did not need music.
Final film of director Sam Peckinpah. The picture was also Peckinpah's big "comeback movie", it was his first in five years, his last film having been at the time Convoy back in 1978 . The movie is also Peckinpah's only feature film of the 1980s decade . The production shoot for this film ran for fifty-four days . Director Sam Peckinpah was in ill-health throughout the shoot as the long-term toll of his drug and alcohol abuse suggested to many in the production that he was dying. Peckinpah after beginning as a writer , was soon involved in TV Westerns at the peak of his popularity ; shooting series just like ¨¨The Westener¨, ¨Gunsmoke¨and most popular ¨Rifleman¨, moving into films by 1961 when he made nice impression with ¨The deadly companions¨, ¨Ride the High Country¨ , Major Dundee¨ and his best picture ,Wild Bunch¨ . After that , he concentrated on nail-biting and tougher-than-tough action films just like ¨The getaway¨, ¨Convoy¨, ¨the ¨killer elite¨ and this last movie ¨Osterman weekend¨ . The final title as violent and nice as anyone the Western or wartime genre has given us .
This actioner and suspenseful movie tells a convoluted and complicated tale of vendetta , espionage and treason . Interesting but slightly boring spy film , including an overly complex and confusing script , even though at times it is admittedly engrossing . The picture was made and released about eleven years after its source novel of the same name by Robert Ludlum had been first published in 1972 . Sam Peckinpah was fired as director during post-production. Others were Convoy and Ride the High County . When he refused to re-edit Osterman weekend after it was screened for a test audience and met with a confused and extremely mixed reaction. Producers took over the editing with the assistance of the editor , drastically altering opening and ending sequences. Mediocre and dark cinematography by John Coquillon , in fact , the picture involved a considerable amount of filming at night. It was filmed at a 1950s ranch located in upper Mandeville Canyon in the Hollywood Hills , it was a property once owned by Robert Taylor and has been frequently been known by the names the "Taylor Estate" . Anti-climatic soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin composed by means by synthesizer . Director Don Siegel, long time friend and mentor to Sam Peckinpah, recommended Lalo Schifrin as the film's composer. Schifrin had scored five of Siegel's movies ; composer Lalo Schifrin had to sit by Sam Peckinpah's sick bed in order to spot the film and decide which scenes did or did not need music.
Final film of director Sam Peckinpah. The picture was also Peckinpah's big "comeback movie", it was his first in five years, his last film having been at the time Convoy back in 1978 . The movie is also Peckinpah's only feature film of the 1980s decade . The production shoot for this film ran for fifty-four days . Director Sam Peckinpah was in ill-health throughout the shoot as the long-term toll of his drug and alcohol abuse suggested to many in the production that he was dying. Peckinpah after beginning as a writer , was soon involved in TV Westerns at the peak of his popularity ; shooting series just like ¨¨The Westener¨, ¨Gunsmoke¨and most popular ¨Rifleman¨, moving into films by 1961 when he made nice impression with ¨The deadly companions¨, ¨Ride the High Country¨ , Major Dundee¨ and his best picture ,Wild Bunch¨ . After that , he concentrated on nail-biting and tougher-than-tough action films just like ¨The getaway¨, ¨Convoy¨, ¨the ¨killer elite¨ and this last movie ¨Osterman weekend¨ . The final title as violent and nice as anyone the Western or wartime genre has given us .
Spy Yarn Gets Too Tangled
slokes22 May 2010
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.
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.
Ahead of its time - brilliant, entertaining, insightful
nfaust117 May 2004
When this movie originally came out, five years after CONVOY (a muddled, but in many ways spectacular entertainment), many critics moaned that Peckinpah had yet again displayed his diminished talent. A Ludlum spy thriller, pulp material, given the Peckinpah stamp was not to be taken seriously, period. What nonsense. To begin with, all of Peckinpah's films spring from pulp, and all of them, even the least successful ones, buck and spin with the way Sam applies his vision to the genre conventions he's messing with.
In simple terms, a Peckinpah movie always illustrates the world according to Sam; like a novelist writing in first person, Sam's point of view is the movie's. And that's why they endure today. In THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND, Peckinpah focuses Ludlum's cold war spy antics into a exploration of urban paranoia and governmental abuse. Video as a means to manipulate perception is one of the themes he exploits here, but that's not his main thrust. A group of affluent characters come together for a weekend that turns into a surreal nightmare. The trappings of success that surround this group are not in any way secure enough to withstand the violent, reckless games played on them by a rouge CIA agent (played by John Hurt) who's motive is personal revenge. And that motive, the revenge that fuels his need, in actual fact, has absolutely nothing to do with the affluent group he's playing with. Like the gods in Greek tragedy, the Hurt character uses the Osterman Weekend and its players as pawns, stepping stones, as a way to get at his real goal, the head of the CIA. This notion obviously strikes a chord in Peckinpah; the vision is certainly domestic, but the idea is epic: in the privacy of our homes a kind of virus colors our perceptions and poisons friendships, creates anarchy, and causes death. And the virus - where does it come from? Our own back yard - the CIA.
The film is charged with a constant underlying tension that holds and holds until all hell breaks loose and the affluent house becomes a battle ground. Visually, the movie is stunning. But then, so was CONVOY, but this time Peckinpah has harnessed what he shows and what he wants to say in a simple, tightly wound spy thriller package, Watching the movie today, it's hard to believe that some of the notions that seemed more like the paranoiac mechanics of a potboiler in 1983 have actually come true and don't seem quite as far fetched. By all accounts, Sam Peckinpah was a terribly difficult man, but he was also a visionary film maker who's work gets better and better as the years pass. THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND is not the bad film critics at the time bitched about, and it's not the sad conclusion to a career that started out brimming with possibility. It's a splendid, brilliant - better than brilliant - work of American art by a true American artist: a giant. The world according to Sam is a world that will be looked at a hundred years from now; it will inspire debate, continual analysis, and be ranked with the major artist of the entire 20th century. By 1983,Peckinpah's health may have diminished, but as a film maker he was still powerful and strong as hell.
In simple terms, a Peckinpah movie always illustrates the world according to Sam; like a novelist writing in first person, Sam's point of view is the movie's. And that's why they endure today. In THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND, Peckinpah focuses Ludlum's cold war spy antics into a exploration of urban paranoia and governmental abuse. Video as a means to manipulate perception is one of the themes he exploits here, but that's not his main thrust. A group of affluent characters come together for a weekend that turns into a surreal nightmare. The trappings of success that surround this group are not in any way secure enough to withstand the violent, reckless games played on them by a rouge CIA agent (played by John Hurt) who's motive is personal revenge. And that motive, the revenge that fuels his need, in actual fact, has absolutely nothing to do with the affluent group he's playing with. Like the gods in Greek tragedy, the Hurt character uses the Osterman Weekend and its players as pawns, stepping stones, as a way to get at his real goal, the head of the CIA. This notion obviously strikes a chord in Peckinpah; the vision is certainly domestic, but the idea is epic: in the privacy of our homes a kind of virus colors our perceptions and poisons friendships, creates anarchy, and causes death. And the virus - where does it come from? Our own back yard - the CIA.
The film is charged with a constant underlying tension that holds and holds until all hell breaks loose and the affluent house becomes a battle ground. Visually, the movie is stunning. But then, so was CONVOY, but this time Peckinpah has harnessed what he shows and what he wants to say in a simple, tightly wound spy thriller package, Watching the movie today, it's hard to believe that some of the notions that seemed more like the paranoiac mechanics of a potboiler in 1983 have actually come true and don't seem quite as far fetched. By all accounts, Sam Peckinpah was a terribly difficult man, but he was also a visionary film maker who's work gets better and better as the years pass. THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND is not the bad film critics at the time bitched about, and it's not the sad conclusion to a career that started out brimming with possibility. It's a splendid, brilliant - better than brilliant - work of American art by a true American artist: a giant. The world according to Sam is a world that will be looked at a hundred years from now; it will inspire debate, continual analysis, and be ranked with the major artist of the entire 20th century. By 1983,Peckinpah's health may have diminished, but as a film maker he was still powerful and strong as hell.
Peckinpah's last
virek21312 July 2001
After the utterly ridiculous good-ol'-boy trucker film CONVOY in 1978, Sam Peckinpah languished for five years before returning in 1983 with what would prove to be his final film--THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND, based on Robert Ludlum's maddeningly complex 1972 spy novel.
Despite the fact that it is often cold and sometimes confusing, this film's weakest moments are far superior to even the strongest moments of CONVOY. Rutger Hauer stars as a hard-hitting TV talk show host with a habit of skewering people inside the U.S. government. As this film opens, he is about to have a reunion with five friends of his from the good old days of 1960s radical college politics.
But then a CIA operative (John Hurt) drops a bombshell on him: Those friends of his (Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper, Helen Shaver, Cassie Yates, Chris Sarandon) are supposedly traitors working for the Soviets in a scheme involving germ warfare sabotage. The result is that Hurt, with Hauer's reluctant acceptance, sets up surveillance equipment throughout Hauer's property to document further evidence of his friends' betrayal. When those people start coming unglued, however, more is at stake than just national security or the Cold War. So are peoples' lives!
Though Peckinpah was clearly on his last run while making it, THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND shows that he still could deliver the goods when it came to setting up great action sequences. The final shootout between Hurt's CIA underlings and Hauer and Nelson is edited in such a way as to resemble THE WILD BUNCH, while its actual filming suggests still another Peckinpah masterpiece, STRAW DOGS. Lalo Schifrin's score brilliantly accentuates things. Peckinpah, in depicting the head of the CIA (Burt Lancaster) as the heavy, also clearly makes a statement against America's heavy-handed approach toward Communism in the Reagan era.
All in all, despite its slight confusion, THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND works for those willing to give it a go.
Despite the fact that it is often cold and sometimes confusing, this film's weakest moments are far superior to even the strongest moments of CONVOY. Rutger Hauer stars as a hard-hitting TV talk show host with a habit of skewering people inside the U.S. government. As this film opens, he is about to have a reunion with five friends of his from the good old days of 1960s radical college politics.
But then a CIA operative (John Hurt) drops a bombshell on him: Those friends of his (Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper, Helen Shaver, Cassie Yates, Chris Sarandon) are supposedly traitors working for the Soviets in a scheme involving germ warfare sabotage. The result is that Hurt, with Hauer's reluctant acceptance, sets up surveillance equipment throughout Hauer's property to document further evidence of his friends' betrayal. When those people start coming unglued, however, more is at stake than just national security or the Cold War. So are peoples' lives!
Though Peckinpah was clearly on his last run while making it, THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND shows that he still could deliver the goods when it came to setting up great action sequences. The final shootout between Hurt's CIA underlings and Hauer and Nelson is edited in such a way as to resemble THE WILD BUNCH, while its actual filming suggests still another Peckinpah masterpiece, STRAW DOGS. Lalo Schifrin's score brilliantly accentuates things. Peckinpah, in depicting the head of the CIA (Burt Lancaster) as the heavy, also clearly makes a statement against America's heavy-handed approach toward Communism in the Reagan era.
All in all, despite its slight confusion, THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND works for those willing to give it a go.
Turn off your television..... if you can!
TOMASBBloodhound16 April 2010
For all the poor reviews this film originally got, it isn't that bad. Sam Peckinpah's final film deals with the cold war, double agents, mind games, and how we watch such things every day through our television screens. And its often the perception of the camera that gives us our own. Even during the more confusing parts, the film is difficult to turn away from. The cast is exceptional, there is quite a bit of action, and you will sometimes feel the need to back up and re-watch some scenes. There were certainly worse films being made back in those days...
The central character is a television host played by the typically outstanding Rutger Hauer. One day he is summoned to a meeting with the CIA who instruct him that three of his best friends are really KGB agents and he must help expose them! That would be quite a thing to hear. Hauer is at first approached by John Hurt (who steals this movie), and then by the CIA director played by Burt Lancaster. Once Hauer agrees to expose his friends over the course of a weekend at his place, they inform him he never had a choice but to do so, anyway! Nice bunch of guys at the CIA. Hurt clearly has his own agenda, and it is one of revenge since Lancaster apparently once ordered Hurt's wife killed to protect their operations in Europe. And Hurt does not hesitate putting Hauer and his friends in jeopardy to achieve his goals. Are the friends KGB? I don't think we ever learn for sure if any are, but they do have left-leaning attitudes as well as things to hide. Honestly, by the end of this film it hardly even matters. The film concludes with both Hurt and Lancaster being exposed as crooked on Hauer's TV show, and Hauer attempting to rescue his wife and child from Hurt. Yes the plot is messy, but its based on a novel. Often times there are important things that need to be left out of a novel in order to have time to make it into a movie. That could be one explanation for the impenetrable plot details.
Peckinpah may have been near death, but this is still his film. You can tell with all the pretty women, slow motion action and gun play. Peckinpah claims the studio wanted him to re-cut it after a poor test audience reaction. But by this late stage in his life, it is unclear that he had the facilities to make this one a true winner. Give this film a try if you stumble across it. Or maybe just read the book. 6 0f 10 stars.
The Hound.
The central character is a television host played by the typically outstanding Rutger Hauer. One day he is summoned to a meeting with the CIA who instruct him that three of his best friends are really KGB agents and he must help expose them! That would be quite a thing to hear. Hauer is at first approached by John Hurt (who steals this movie), and then by the CIA director played by Burt Lancaster. Once Hauer agrees to expose his friends over the course of a weekend at his place, they inform him he never had a choice but to do so, anyway! Nice bunch of guys at the CIA. Hurt clearly has his own agenda, and it is one of revenge since Lancaster apparently once ordered Hurt's wife killed to protect their operations in Europe. And Hurt does not hesitate putting Hauer and his friends in jeopardy to achieve his goals. Are the friends KGB? I don't think we ever learn for sure if any are, but they do have left-leaning attitudes as well as things to hide. Honestly, by the end of this film it hardly even matters. The film concludes with both Hurt and Lancaster being exposed as crooked on Hauer's TV show, and Hauer attempting to rescue his wife and child from Hurt. Yes the plot is messy, but its based on a novel. Often times there are important things that need to be left out of a novel in order to have time to make it into a movie. That could be one explanation for the impenetrable plot details.
Peckinpah may have been near death, but this is still his film. You can tell with all the pretty women, slow motion action and gun play. Peckinpah claims the studio wanted him to re-cut it after a poor test audience reaction. But by this late stage in his life, it is unclear that he had the facilities to make this one a true winner. Give this film a try if you stumble across it. Or maybe just read the book. 6 0f 10 stars.
The Hound.
The OSTERMAN WEEKEND is about television, chump.
max von meyerling19 May 2006
Forget whatever else you might have heard about The Osterman Weekend. When it came out no one really had it figured out. It did not fit neatly into the Peckenpah canon and it took a while after his death for a broadly philosophical-aesthetic of Peckenpah to be established to shoehorn various elements to make a coherent (but incorrect) analysis possible.
To give you an idea of the mental set of the time, what was taken seriously as filmic art, what was considered a first rate film, top of the heap, was TERMS OF ENDEARMENT (1983) which won five Oscars including best picture, best director and best script, not to mention Golden Globes, DGA, WGA, L.A. & N.Y. and National Board of Review awards etc. THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND was barely noticed, and, if at all, instantly dismissed as - why would Peckenpah ever agree to direct this? At the time Peckenpah's career was essentially over. He was not only unemployable but also very ill. Some wanna-be producers thought that the expressway to film success was to buy a best seller which they did. For some reason, probably his impeccable legendary status, they hired Peckenpah. At the time Peckenpah was living in Peter Fonda's Montana cabin. Now I'm only speculating, or rather projecting, but my informed guess about THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND comes from certain privileged information.
I too lived in a northland cabin. In the pre-satellite, pre-cable days, it was typical to be able to get only one channel. From early fall through spring, ones days become oddly set. Once you've done the chores, shopping, taken long walks with the dog in the woods, it starts to grow dark and a bit nippy around 3:30 and there's nothing left to do but go back to the cabin, make a fire in the fireplace, light up a bowl to enjoy the sunset and maybe get a brewski from the fridge and turn on the TV. One channel, remember, and what's on? I remember for me it was Hawaii 5-0 and The Streets of San Francisco. I was amazed at the total inanity of these 50+ minute narratives. Maybe I'd socialize in the evening, go to the mall or drive a hour to the art cinema for a film but these afternoon syndicated 'action' shows were a main source of perverse amusement.
Peckenpah was offered a job and took it. He didn't have the strength to insist on his own cast, he made his film and then had the final cut taken out of his hands to be cut by a bunch of schlockmeister hacks who have since glommed onto a profitable franchise in the Highlander pictures. It was a spy/thriller best seller, inviolate in its success. He still took the job and made the ridiculous story. However the film of THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND is not a spy/thriller. It is a very clever and at times venomous critique of television whose skewering varies from witty to sarcastic. THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND is about television.
Set ups and shots mock those of TV action series. So does the mise en scene and the cutting. The tone of the close-ups, the use of expository devises like telephone calls, time gobbled up and the illusion of action delivered by mere geography passing the windows of a vehicle. To further enhance the subject the lead character is a television personality. But the last and most brilliant layer is for this shadow play to play out on various television screens. The film must have an hour, a solid hour, of people watching other people on television screens, or people watching other people watching people watch television (it happens). Television is a bad imitation of life (and death). The story is a toss away but the bitter critique of television and even more denunciation of the audience is what occupies Peckenpah's interest. He does plant various Easter Eggs throughout. The death of the John Hurt's wife is the alternate scenario of the death of Marilyn Monroe. That is directed like real Peckenpaugh and not faux TV. I haven't seen the director's cut but I'll bet that the extended sex scene - 1. Makes the viewer very uncomfortable, and 2. Makes an aesthetic statement independent from the film's narrative. I don't know if its super sexy or super depressing or anything in between but I'm sure its something.
Of course the blowhards who paid for it all didn't care what the hell Peckenpah was doing for his own satisfaction. "Everyone' had read the novel and everyone wanted to see the film of the novel. It was a sure hit. All of that artistic crap was besides the point. So 'everyone' thought TERMS OF ENDEARMENT was the height of art and it succeed mightily and THE OSTERMSAN WEEKEND was D.O.A. and survived, barely, because it was an auteur's final film. It get's written about because nearly everything to be said has been said about the accepted Peckenpah masterpieces and this must, somehow, have it's virtues. The trick was to bend the film to fit a set of acceptable virtues.
In fact what he have is Peckenpah's spleen exploding on the screen. Sure TERMS OF ENDEARMENT was superficially the serious film but all of its seriousness is insensitively mechanical. A typical novel about the hollowness of an academic career adapted to soap opera verities. While it pressed certain cultural buttons in 1983 it just lies lifeless on the celluloid today , a story unreeling whose emotional peeks will diminish as the actor's special personas become more remote from the viewers. THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND, despite the culturally chronologic specificity of the topic, television will resonate as long as there is an idiot box, by whatever dimension, in front of our eyes and resounding through our consciousness, and, worst still, become a part of our daily lives down to our autonomic nervous systems.
To give you an idea of the mental set of the time, what was taken seriously as filmic art, what was considered a first rate film, top of the heap, was TERMS OF ENDEARMENT (1983) which won five Oscars including best picture, best director and best script, not to mention Golden Globes, DGA, WGA, L.A. & N.Y. and National Board of Review awards etc. THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND was barely noticed, and, if at all, instantly dismissed as - why would Peckenpah ever agree to direct this? At the time Peckenpah's career was essentially over. He was not only unemployable but also very ill. Some wanna-be producers thought that the expressway to film success was to buy a best seller which they did. For some reason, probably his impeccable legendary status, they hired Peckenpah. At the time Peckenpah was living in Peter Fonda's Montana cabin. Now I'm only speculating, or rather projecting, but my informed guess about THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND comes from certain privileged information.
I too lived in a northland cabin. In the pre-satellite, pre-cable days, it was typical to be able to get only one channel. From early fall through spring, ones days become oddly set. Once you've done the chores, shopping, taken long walks with the dog in the woods, it starts to grow dark and a bit nippy around 3:30 and there's nothing left to do but go back to the cabin, make a fire in the fireplace, light up a bowl to enjoy the sunset and maybe get a brewski from the fridge and turn on the TV. One channel, remember, and what's on? I remember for me it was Hawaii 5-0 and The Streets of San Francisco. I was amazed at the total inanity of these 50+ minute narratives. Maybe I'd socialize in the evening, go to the mall or drive a hour to the art cinema for a film but these afternoon syndicated 'action' shows were a main source of perverse amusement.
Peckenpah was offered a job and took it. He didn't have the strength to insist on his own cast, he made his film and then had the final cut taken out of his hands to be cut by a bunch of schlockmeister hacks who have since glommed onto a profitable franchise in the Highlander pictures. It was a spy/thriller best seller, inviolate in its success. He still took the job and made the ridiculous story. However the film of THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND is not a spy/thriller. It is a very clever and at times venomous critique of television whose skewering varies from witty to sarcastic. THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND is about television.
Set ups and shots mock those of TV action series. So does the mise en scene and the cutting. The tone of the close-ups, the use of expository devises like telephone calls, time gobbled up and the illusion of action delivered by mere geography passing the windows of a vehicle. To further enhance the subject the lead character is a television personality. But the last and most brilliant layer is for this shadow play to play out on various television screens. The film must have an hour, a solid hour, of people watching other people on television screens, or people watching other people watching people watch television (it happens). Television is a bad imitation of life (and death). The story is a toss away but the bitter critique of television and even more denunciation of the audience is what occupies Peckenpah's interest. He does plant various Easter Eggs throughout. The death of the John Hurt's wife is the alternate scenario of the death of Marilyn Monroe. That is directed like real Peckenpaugh and not faux TV. I haven't seen the director's cut but I'll bet that the extended sex scene - 1. Makes the viewer very uncomfortable, and 2. Makes an aesthetic statement independent from the film's narrative. I don't know if its super sexy or super depressing or anything in between but I'm sure its something.
Of course the blowhards who paid for it all didn't care what the hell Peckenpah was doing for his own satisfaction. "Everyone' had read the novel and everyone wanted to see the film of the novel. It was a sure hit. All of that artistic crap was besides the point. So 'everyone' thought TERMS OF ENDEARMENT was the height of art and it succeed mightily and THE OSTERMSAN WEEKEND was D.O.A. and survived, barely, because it was an auteur's final film. It get's written about because nearly everything to be said has been said about the accepted Peckenpah masterpieces and this must, somehow, have it's virtues. The trick was to bend the film to fit a set of acceptable virtues.
In fact what he have is Peckenpah's spleen exploding on the screen. Sure TERMS OF ENDEARMENT was superficially the serious film but all of its seriousness is insensitively mechanical. A typical novel about the hollowness of an academic career adapted to soap opera verities. While it pressed certain cultural buttons in 1983 it just lies lifeless on the celluloid today , a story unreeling whose emotional peeks will diminish as the actor's special personas become more remote from the viewers. THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND, despite the culturally chronologic specificity of the topic, television will resonate as long as there is an idiot box, by whatever dimension, in front of our eyes and resounding through our consciousness, and, worst still, become a part of our daily lives down to our autonomic nervous systems.
A Good, But Complicated Plot of Revenge, in Times of Cold War
claudio_carvalho15 April 2005
Near to the seventh annual meeting to celebrate their graduation and friendship, the successful anchor of a television network John Tanner (Rutger Hauer) is convinced by CIA director Maxwell Danforth (Burt Lancaster) and his agent Lawrence Fassett (John Hurt) that his best friends belong to a Soviet Union organization called Omega. The CIA installs cameras and microphones everywhere in his house to monitor Bernard Osterman (Craid T. Nelson), Richard Tremayne (Dennis Hopper) and Joseph Cardone (Chris Sarandon). A complicated and very evil plot is disclosed along the weekend. Yesterday I saw "The Osterman Weekend" maybe for the fourth time, but now on DVD, and I still like it. However, with the end of the Cold War and the present state-art of communication, this story has become dated, and lost a great part of its impact. However, in 1983, it was ahead of time, criticizing the media through television. The Double Commemorative Edition DVD features a second disc, with the documentary "From Alpha to Omega: The Making of 'The Osterman Weekend' (2004)". This documentary was released in 2004, and presents a complete dossier about this movie. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): "O Casal Osterman" ("The Osterman Couple")
Title (Brazil): "O Casal Osterman" ("The Osterman Couple")
A great cast for Peckinpah's swan song
Leofwine_draca22 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Sam Peckinpah's swan song is a muddled, confusing work with flashes of greatness that remind us of the director in his prime. Considering the amount of trash that was released during the '80s, I was actually pretty pleased with this film, which kept me gripped throughout. The reason is twofold: first off, the twisty, turny plot line, taken from a Robert Ludlum novel, always keeps you guessing as to the true identities of the characters and what's going on behind the scenes. The second reason is the cast: this film has assembled a list of greats from old-time winners to then-new talent.
The film marks pretty familiar territory for the director: taut conspiracy tension combines with a home-under-siege scenario reminiscent of the climax of STRAW DOGS. Along the way there's time for the kind of biting television satire that was also prevalent in the likes of Cronenberg's VIDEODROME from the same period. The action is handled very well indeed and there's just the right amount without the film being too over the top; time is always taken to build the characters and storyline first, unlike in today's Hollywood blockbusters. I find action always more effective when you care about those involved. Peckinpah can't resist shooting some slow motion and I love the bow and arrows/crossbow scenes, expertly done.
Yes, the film's editing is poor, and Lalo Schifrin's score is one of his deservedly lesser known compositions. The muddled storyline takes some working out but despite all these negatives, I had fun watching this movie. The twist is spot on and the actors handle it very well. John Hurt is creepy and weird, while Rutger Hauer is the best I've ever seen him, making for a charismatic hero who's believable as well as being an action man. Burt Lancaster lends some old-time gravitas to the role while '80s starlets Helen Shaver and Meg Foster also make good, early impressions in their careers. Some of the best casting is saved for the trio of friends who visit Hauer; Nelson, Hopper and Sarandon take some beating. Hopper achieves a fine balance between friendliness and sinister; Chris Sarandon is a pretty frightening, volatile character and I'm sure his part here paved the way for his vampire role in FRIGHT NIGHT. Best of all is POLTERGEIST's Craig T. Nelson, absolutely superb as the buddy with shady intentions; he plays it just right. What a cast!
The film marks pretty familiar territory for the director: taut conspiracy tension combines with a home-under-siege scenario reminiscent of the climax of STRAW DOGS. Along the way there's time for the kind of biting television satire that was also prevalent in the likes of Cronenberg's VIDEODROME from the same period. The action is handled very well indeed and there's just the right amount without the film being too over the top; time is always taken to build the characters and storyline first, unlike in today's Hollywood blockbusters. I find action always more effective when you care about those involved. Peckinpah can't resist shooting some slow motion and I love the bow and arrows/crossbow scenes, expertly done.
Yes, the film's editing is poor, and Lalo Schifrin's score is one of his deservedly lesser known compositions. The muddled storyline takes some working out but despite all these negatives, I had fun watching this movie. The twist is spot on and the actors handle it very well. John Hurt is creepy and weird, while Rutger Hauer is the best I've ever seen him, making for a charismatic hero who's believable as well as being an action man. Burt Lancaster lends some old-time gravitas to the role while '80s starlets Helen Shaver and Meg Foster also make good, early impressions in their careers. Some of the best casting is saved for the trio of friends who visit Hauer; Nelson, Hopper and Sarandon take some beating. Hopper achieves a fine balance between friendliness and sinister; Chris Sarandon is a pretty frightening, volatile character and I'm sure his part here paved the way for his vampire role in FRIGHT NIGHT. Best of all is POLTERGEIST's Craig T. Nelson, absolutely superb as the buddy with shady intentions; he plays it just right. What a cast!
Increasingly compelling, but also muddled spy thriller
gridoon202415 April 2015
Warning: Spoilers
For the first 30 minutes or so, "The Osterman Weekend" is a talky affair that looks and sounds almost like a TV movie, which made me wonder what had happened to the famous director Sam Peckinpah. Then a GREAT car chase sequence occurs, and the old Peckinpah (complete with trademark ritualistic slow motion) is back. From that point on, the action moves inside Rutger Hauer's house, and the film turns into a claustrophobic, psychological cat-and-mouse game. In the last 15 minutes, there is an outbreak of action directed with characteristic Peckinpah flair, but there are also more plot twists than you can shake a stick at, not all of them plausible. The ultimate result is a film both compelling and muddled. One thing you can not deny is the terrific cast - if you can buy Craig T. Nelson as a martial arts master! **1/2 out of 4.
that's quite a mess for a legend's swan song
SnoopyStyle6 February 2016
CIA director Maxwell Danforth (Burt Lancaster) does a deal with the Soviets and let them kill agent Laurence Fassett (John Hurt)'s wife. Fassett is unaware of the deal and is tracking down Soviet agent Omega. He tells TV personality John Tanner (Rutger Hauer) that his friends are all working for Omega. Tanner and his friends are gathering for the weekend. Fassett sets his home up with surveillance. Tanner tries to send his wife Ali (Meg Foster) and son away but they are almost kidnapped. Tanner's friends include his TV producer Bernard Osterman (Craig T. Nelson), plastic surgeon Richard Tremayne (Dennis Hopper) and his coke-snorting wife Virginia (Helen Shaver), and stock trader Joseph Cardone (Chris Sarandon) and wife Betty (Cassie Yates).
This story is a mess and the execution doesn't solve anything. Director Sam Peckinpah's last feature film is full questionable things. It's too many to list. Even his action sequences are badly done. He overuses his trademark slow motion shots which seems very dated. Other action directors have pass him by. Then there is the plot. It's not simply plot holes but more about motivations. I don't understand why Fassett is doing what he's doing. It's all quite a mess.
This story is a mess and the execution doesn't solve anything. Director Sam Peckinpah's last feature film is full questionable things. It's too many to list. Even his action sequences are badly done. He overuses his trademark slow motion shots which seems very dated. Other action directors have pass him by. Then there is the plot. It's not simply plot holes but more about motivations. I don't understand why Fassett is doing what he's doing. It's all quite a mess.
Editors can be good!
JasparLamarCrabb19 March 2006
Warning: Spoilers
Someone should have convinced director Sam Peckinpah that some editors can be a good thing for a film. THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND could have used one. It's so malformed, it's nearly incomprehensible. Peckinpah's last film is fast paced, but extremely muddled.
Rutger Hauer plays a talk show host who realizes his friends are all "enemies of the state" and he's roped into to eliminating them by shadowy government operative John Hurt. Burt Lancaster is in there somewhere too, but it's not clear who he is or what he's up to. As the friends, Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper and Chris Sarandon are fine but the film doesn't spend a second developing these characters. Hauer is surprisingly good in a rare non-villain role and Meg Foster and her creepy eyes are in it too!
Rutger Hauer plays a talk show host who realizes his friends are all "enemies of the state" and he's roped into to eliminating them by shadowy government operative John Hurt. Burt Lancaster is in there somewhere too, but it's not clear who he is or what he's up to. As the friends, Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper and Chris Sarandon are fine but the film doesn't spend a second developing these characters. Hauer is surprisingly good in a rare non-villain role and Meg Foster and her creepy eyes are in it too!
Weak end to a legendary career.
BroadswordCallinDannyBoy3 August 2009
"The Osterman Weekend" emits the feeling of a last gasp. What was an author's second novel later took this form of a director's last film. Sam Peckinpah was a good choice for directing, with film's like "The Wild Bunch" and "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" under his belt, Peckinpah wouldn't hesitate to show the grim world of betrayal and manipulation that Robert Ludlum showed through virtually everyone of his books. With spy films like the James Bond franchise being the most popular, this was the lesser seem side of that coin - the side that is less escapist adventure storytelling for boys.
However, the problems that Sam Peckinpah was going through at his last stages have noticeably affected the film. The intricate plot is there, but feels stitched together in parts, though that may very well be due the studio demanding re-editing work. The action is at times sloppy with very little of the mesmerizing details of Peckinpah's previous action sequences; a car crash even contains multiple repeats of the same angle and makes some disastrous continuity. The other action scenes are a notch or two better, but still far from what they could have been.
But, at least the plot and its many deceptions keep you guessing, right to the last shot. --- 6/10
BsCDb Classification: 13+ --- violence, sexual content
However, the problems that Sam Peckinpah was going through at his last stages have noticeably affected the film. The intricate plot is there, but feels stitched together in parts, though that may very well be due the studio demanding re-editing work. The action is at times sloppy with very little of the mesmerizing details of Peckinpah's previous action sequences; a car crash even contains multiple repeats of the same angle and makes some disastrous continuity. The other action scenes are a notch or two better, but still far from what they could have been.
But, at least the plot and its many deceptions keep you guessing, right to the last shot. --- 6/10
BsCDb Classification: 13+ --- violence, sexual content
Alpha to Omega
sol-kay25 March 2005
( 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.
The Voyeur's Weekend
Chrysanthepop12 July 2010
Peckinpah's swansong 'The Osterman Weekend' at first appears as a political thriller but gradually as the story gets more complex, the layers unfold as the surprise is gradually revealed. It may have a dated look mostly because of the technical props that are obsolete today. But, the main theme of the story is ahead of its time.
The movie is shot in a voyeuristic fashion. The viewer is given intimate glimpses into the lives of the characters, even during their private moments such as when they're having sex. At the same time, the editing could have been tighter had it not focused a little too much on the sex and drugs themes. Peckinpah does an excellent job in building tension and catching the viewer by surprise. The film gets a tad confusing but once the major twist is revealed, it's easy to get back on track.
All the actors, John Hurt, Rutger Hauer, Dennis Hopper, Helen Shaver, Cassie Yates and Chris Sarandon do a good job. Craig T. Nelson is adequate. His performance in the latter half suffers due to the poor lines he's given to deliver. Lalo Schifrin's score works. The action sequences may not look as sophisticated as they do in today's spy-thrillers but they're quite fun to watch.
Even though 'The Osterman Weekend' is confusing at times, it does work as a suspense thriller. It has its flaws but in my opinion, it is not half as bad as many have made it out to be.
The movie is shot in a voyeuristic fashion. The viewer is given intimate glimpses into the lives of the characters, even during their private moments such as when they're having sex. At the same time, the editing could have been tighter had it not focused a little too much on the sex and drugs themes. Peckinpah does an excellent job in building tension and catching the viewer by surprise. The film gets a tad confusing but once the major twist is revealed, it's easy to get back on track.
All the actors, John Hurt, Rutger Hauer, Dennis Hopper, Helen Shaver, Cassie Yates and Chris Sarandon do a good job. Craig T. Nelson is adequate. His performance in the latter half suffers due to the poor lines he's given to deliver. Lalo Schifrin's score works. The action sequences may not look as sophisticated as they do in today's spy-thrillers but they're quite fun to watch.
Even though 'The Osterman Weekend' is confusing at times, it does work as a suspense thriller. It has its flaws but in my opinion, it is not half as bad as many have made it out to be.
A weekend to forget
Mr-Fusion1 October 2019
Early '80s Cold War suspense yarn from Sam Peckinpah (his swan song, no less), and my interest in such marketing was piqued as soon as I happened upon this movie. The actual product is . . . hoo boy . . .
It'a lifeless affair that feels slapped together in almost every way; incoherent script, cheap production values, even the score feels out of place. Rutger Hauer leads a cast of solid performers, all of whom are working with weak material.
I don't know what else to say about this; it did nothing for me.
It'a lifeless affair that feels slapped together in almost every way; incoherent script, cheap production values, even the score feels out of place. Rutger Hauer leads a cast of solid performers, all of whom are working with weak material.
I don't know what else to say about this; it did nothing for me.
Time for a face-to-face.
Hey_Sweden21 March 2014
The cinematic swan song for the maverick filmmaker known as "Bloody Sam" Peckinpah, "The Osterman Weekend" is not among his best. Based on the novel by Robert Ludlum, it's somewhat muddled, especially when it comes to motivation and methodology. Still, it's not without interest as a politically conscious, and fairly suspenseful, action-thriller. While some viewers may take exception to the late-in-the-game revelations in this story, this viewer found them rather amusing and appreciated just how well characters have manipulated each other throughout. A little too much time is indeed spent on weekend hijinks, but Peckinpah eventually introduces his trademark flourishes to the set pieces in the latter part of the film, making it rather exciting. An excellent cast does what it can with their roles.
Rutger Hauer stars as John Tanner, an investigative TV host who tries to hold people in positions of authority accountable. He's approached by a rogue CIA agent, Lawrence Fassett (John Hurt) who attempts to convince him that his three friends - Bernard Osterman (Craig T. Nelson), Richard Tremayne (Dennis Hopper), and Joseph Cardone (Chris Sarandon) are traitors working with the KGB. Tanner doesn't want to believe it, but he agrees to have surveillance cameras set up in his house and on his property for one of the regular get-togethers between the friends and their wives. Eventually, Tanner finds out that things are not as they seem.
Overall, the film is enjoyable if nothing great. The characters are reasonably engaging if never that compelling. Hauer is good in the lead, with strong support from Hurt, Nelson, Hopper, Sarandon, Meg Foster and her real-life son Christopher Starr as Tanners' family, Helen Shaver and Cassie Yates as Hoppers' and Sarandons' significant others, and the always solid Burt Lancaster in an authoritative turn as Maxwell Danforth, director of the C.I.A. Anne Haney, Jan Triska, and Tim Thomerson have small parts. Hurt delivers the most interesting performance in the whole thing.
While this may be no "Wild Bunch" or "Straw Dogs", "The Osterman Weekend" is still worth a look for those wanting to see the final Peckinpah film.
Seven out of 10.
Rutger Hauer stars as John Tanner, an investigative TV host who tries to hold people in positions of authority accountable. He's approached by a rogue CIA agent, Lawrence Fassett (John Hurt) who attempts to convince him that his three friends - Bernard Osterman (Craig T. Nelson), Richard Tremayne (Dennis Hopper), and Joseph Cardone (Chris Sarandon) are traitors working with the KGB. Tanner doesn't want to believe it, but he agrees to have surveillance cameras set up in his house and on his property for one of the regular get-togethers between the friends and their wives. Eventually, Tanner finds out that things are not as they seem.
Overall, the film is enjoyable if nothing great. The characters are reasonably engaging if never that compelling. Hauer is good in the lead, with strong support from Hurt, Nelson, Hopper, Sarandon, Meg Foster and her real-life son Christopher Starr as Tanners' family, Helen Shaver and Cassie Yates as Hoppers' and Sarandons' significant others, and the always solid Burt Lancaster in an authoritative turn as Maxwell Danforth, director of the C.I.A. Anne Haney, Jan Triska, and Tim Thomerson have small parts. Hurt delivers the most interesting performance in the whole thing.
While this may be no "Wild Bunch" or "Straw Dogs", "The Osterman Weekend" is still worth a look for those wanting to see the final Peckinpah film.
Seven out of 10.
A curiosity piece for Peckinpah fans
pmtelefon17 March 2020
I am a big fan of the films of Sam Peckinpah but he doesn't do anything special with "The Osterman Weekend". The movie isn't terrible but it's not very good. The problem is that the movie just isn't that interesting. There is an exciting chase scene and the climax is good too but that's not enough to save the movie. Watching characters that you are not interested in makes for a long night.
A really dumb movie...
rps-220 September 2001
If you like boobs bombs and bullets, you might enjoy this overwrought cold war shoot-em-up. But even after you figure out what it's all about --- no easy task --- you'll find it puerile and improbable. It reaches and the viewer retches. The James Bond movies make more sense and nobody is supposed to take Bond seriously. But they do set off a lot of explosives and fire a lot of guns when they're not performing sexual acrobatics. (Why did he want her to stop chewing gum anyhow?) It's not a dreadful movie. But almost!
A killer and a liar
bkoganbing31 August 2013
Warning: Spoilers
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.
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.
Only watch it on TV if you have 90 minutes going spare!
badcommand14 February 2009
The Robert Ludlum book of the same name is excellent, very tense and very well written. I waited ages for this film to come along at the right price (25p off ebay, ha ha), but how disappointed I was when I finally saw it. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad film if it wasn't based on a book, but it is, and a great book at that. Therefore, I have to compare the film with the original as the two can't be separated. Relative to the book, the film is, frankly, rubbish I'm sorry to say. I had such high expectations, but the film bore such little resemblance to the book that had I not known it was called "The Osterman Weekend", I would never have guessed that it was based on the book of the same name.
I gave this film 5/10 simply because I made it through to the end (and Rutger Hauer and John Hurt have done some great stuff), but it was more out of morbid curiosity as to how much more they could butcher the book than for any entertainment value. This was a film that was a product of its time (replete with cheesy music and bad acting) and it hasn't aged well. I'm glad I bought it for 25p because any more and I would've considered it a waste of money.
If it comes up on TV and you have 90 minutes burning a hole in your life, watch it - it isn't dreadful, but it's certainly not great. If you've read the book and are hoping to see it brought to life, or think that you're about to watch another Sam Peckinpah classic, give it a miss, it really isn't worth it.
I gave this film 5/10 simply because I made it through to the end (and Rutger Hauer and John Hurt have done some great stuff), but it was more out of morbid curiosity as to how much more they could butcher the book than for any entertainment value. This was a film that was a product of its time (replete with cheesy music and bad acting) and it hasn't aged well. I'm glad I bought it for 25p because any more and I would've considered it a waste of money.
If it comes up on TV and you have 90 minutes burning a hole in your life, watch it - it isn't dreadful, but it's certainly not great. If you've read the book and are hoping to see it brought to life, or think that you're about to watch another Sam Peckinpah classic, give it a miss, it really isn't worth it.
better than its reputation, though it's not one of the director's best
Quinoa198418 May 2008
The Osterman Weekend, a respectable, entertaining if not auspicious swan song of a great subversive director's career (then again neither was his death very auspicious), is from a Robert Ludlum novel. Being that it's from the 'Bourne' series writer, going in without much knowledge of how he exactly writes one can be sure of certain traits that the film adaptations will have. One of which, chiefly, are some twists, and then double-twists, and maybe one more twist for the road. It's fitting though since the story is pit in the arena of the CIA, KGB, shady dealing, backstabbing, revenge, and friendships and family on a slippery slope. For Peckinpah, it's more of a "job" than an actual artistic endeavor like an 'Alfredo Garcia.' And, in fact, his final cut was taken away and re-edited slightly by the producers.
Whether or not it's a credit to Bloody Sam's talent and intuition that the film looks as good as it does with the producer's meddling is hard to figure. Certainly things need to be paid attention to closely for confusion not to run rampant, but for this kind of thriller it doesn't feel too compromised. This isn't to say this is any unique material for Peckinpah, with the story of a TV show host (Rutger Hauer) who is put under pressure by an operative (John Hurt) to turn in his old college friends (i.e. Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper) who come every year to his house for a weekend of frivolity, and then everything going to pot as the tables are turned. In fact, to be blunt, most any director with a capability for the spy-thriller genre could handle the material with good enough gloves to make it watchable.
But for Peckinpah, luckily, there are some points where he can put his trademark touches on the material (i.e. car chase, final attack scene by the pool-side), and he's also got a pretty good ensemble to work with (aside from the others mentioned, Burt Lancaster appears in a few scenes and is terrific as usual in all of them). It's not very heavy material, and there's even some dated 80's music- odd since it's dependable Lalo Schifrin at the chords- put in a couple of scenes to badly staged sex scenes. But overall it's still good work from the director, usually on his toes with the material despite the reports of his alcohol abuse on the set. We're sucked into this character John's dilemma, and see the subtleness of Hurt's performance as an indicator that something isn't quite right throughout until the surprise comes along.
It's slick film-making, with some touches of taut suspense thrown in, and a fairly tasteless bit involving a dog's severed head! Just don't go in expecting full blown magnificence (or the rock-em-sock-em style of the Bourne movies).
Whether or not it's a credit to Bloody Sam's talent and intuition that the film looks as good as it does with the producer's meddling is hard to figure. Certainly things need to be paid attention to closely for confusion not to run rampant, but for this kind of thriller it doesn't feel too compromised. This isn't to say this is any unique material for Peckinpah, with the story of a TV show host (Rutger Hauer) who is put under pressure by an operative (John Hurt) to turn in his old college friends (i.e. Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper) who come every year to his house for a weekend of frivolity, and then everything going to pot as the tables are turned. In fact, to be blunt, most any director with a capability for the spy-thriller genre could handle the material with good enough gloves to make it watchable.
But for Peckinpah, luckily, there are some points where he can put his trademark touches on the material (i.e. car chase, final attack scene by the pool-side), and he's also got a pretty good ensemble to work with (aside from the others mentioned, Burt Lancaster appears in a few scenes and is terrific as usual in all of them). It's not very heavy material, and there's even some dated 80's music- odd since it's dependable Lalo Schifrin at the chords- put in a couple of scenes to badly staged sex scenes. But overall it's still good work from the director, usually on his toes with the material despite the reports of his alcohol abuse on the set. We're sucked into this character John's dilemma, and see the subtleness of Hurt's performance as an indicator that something isn't quite right throughout until the surprise comes along.
It's slick film-making, with some touches of taut suspense thrown in, and a fairly tasteless bit involving a dog's severed head! Just don't go in expecting full blown magnificence (or the rock-em-sock-em style of the Bourne movies).
Unusual, nasty, and somewhat heart-stopping Cold War thriller.
mhasheider10 June 2002
Unusual and somewhat heart-stopping Cold War thriller about a maverick CIA operative, Lawrence Fassett (John Hurt) who makes a weekend get-together that a laid-back talk show host, John Tanner (Rutger Hauer) and his family who are holding for his three friends (Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper, and Chris Sarandon) and their wives a living h---.
"The Osterman Weekend", based on the novel by the late Robert Ludlum, which is adapted here by Alan Sharp, and marks the last film directed by Sam Peckinpah. Besides "The Wild Bunch", considered to be Peckinpah's best movie, "The Osterman Weekend" doesn't come close, but the film have some terrific moments that make your heart stop beating and the fine score composed by Lalo Schifrin (TV's Mission Impossible, Kelly's Heroes).
Hauer, who is playing a good guy for a change fairs quite well and deserves a little more credit, however; Nelson and especially Hurt quietly succeed in the stealing the show here. And what makes Fassett (Hurt) even more interesting is that he won't lose his cool in getting revenge for his wife's murder. The problem with the movie isn't the performances, it's the trouble of keeping the tension and let go to scary heights.
"The Osterman Weekend", based on the novel by the late Robert Ludlum, which is adapted here by Alan Sharp, and marks the last film directed by Sam Peckinpah. Besides "The Wild Bunch", considered to be Peckinpah's best movie, "The Osterman Weekend" doesn't come close, but the film have some terrific moments that make your heart stop beating and the fine score composed by Lalo Schifrin (TV's Mission Impossible, Kelly's Heroes).
Hauer, who is playing a good guy for a change fairs quite well and deserves a little more credit, however; Nelson and especially Hurt quietly succeed in the stealing the show here. And what makes Fassett (Hurt) even more interesting is that he won't lose his cool in getting revenge for his wife's murder. The problem with the movie isn't the performances, it's the trouble of keeping the tension and let go to scary heights.
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