{"id":4056,"date":"2024-09-14T17:23:59","date_gmt":"2024-09-14T17:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4056"},"modified":"2024-10-13T19:40:30","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T23:40:30","slug":"the-osterman-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/14\/the-osterman-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"The Osterman Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Osterman Weekend<\/strong> (1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th<\/sup> Century Fox\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 103 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, nudity, sexual content, language, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Sam Peckinpah\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Alan Sharp\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Lalo Schifrin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John Coquillon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 4, 1983 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Rutger Hauer, John Hurt, Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper, Chris Sarandon, Meg Foster, Helen Shaver, Cassie Yates, Sandy McPeak, Christopher Starr, Burt Lancaster, Cheryl Carter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $6.4M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Osterman Weekend<\/strong> is a big convoluted mess, but it\u2019s not entirely the fault of director Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch). It happened like this. His original version was screened once and only once. The test audience\u2019s reaction was overwhelmingly negative. Many viewers walked out long before it was over. They complained it was confusing and impossible to follow.\u00a0 The producers asked Peckinpah to re-edit the movie. When he balked at their request, he was fired and they did it themselves. The end product is a slick but incomprehensible action-thriller.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This past weekend, I watched both the theatrical cut and Peckinpah\u2019s rough cut. I\u2019m sad to say that the longer cut (116 minutes) doesn\u2019t clarify a damn thing. I didn\u2019t understand it any better than when I watched the version released to the public. Here\u2019s what I did understand. John Tanner (Hauer, Blade Runner), a controversial TV journalist who\u2019s highly distrustful of the government, is approached by CIA agent Fassett (Hurt, Alien) who informs him that three of his closest friends- stock trader Cardone (Sarandon, Fright Night), plastic surgeon Tremayne (Hopper, Easy Rider) and TV producer Osterman (Nelson, Poltergeist)- are secret KGB operatives working for an outfit called Omega.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The CIA, headed by Maxwell Danforth (Lancaster, Atlantic City), needs Tanner to turn one of them against the others in order to bring down the whole Soviet network. They want him to do it during an upcoming weekend get-together at Tanner\u2019s house. Fassett will be watching them the whole time via closed-circuit cameras installed in every room. Of course, it\u2019s all BS. Fassett has something else in mind, namely revenge. He hasn\u2019t been right since the CIA-sanctioned murder of his wife two years earlier.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That\u2019s about all I can tell you about the plot of The Osterman Weekend<\/strong>. It\u2019s sad to think this is Peckinpah\u2019s final film (he died in December \u201984). He was seriously ill during filming which goes a long way towards explaining the movie\u2019s lazy execution. It\u2019s clear he wants to say something about the media (television, in particular) and a world where privacy no longer exists with Big Brother watching our every move. Whatever it is, it gets lost in all the confusion. Most (if not all) of the film\u2019s problems can be traced back to a poorly written screenplay by Alan Sharp (Night Moves) adapting the 1972 novel by Robert Ludlum (The Bourne Identity). I\u2019ve never read the book, but it has to make more sense than its cinematic incarnation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Not all of The Osterman Weekend<\/strong> is bad. There are a few effective moments, but they do little to hold the movie together. It falls apart long before the end. One of the best scenes is the car chase in which Tanner pursues the fellow that attempts to kidnap his wife Ali (Foster, They Live) and son (Starr). It\u2019s good, but nowhere near the level of any given chase in The Getaway. Also, the climactic sequence with Tanner taking on home invaders is a pale imitation of the climax of Straw Dogs.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I must admit The Osterman Weekend<\/strong> has an impressive cast. It makes me wonder if they had any idea what was going on in the story. They don\u2019t look lost at sea which either means they actually understood the plot or they\u2019re better actors than anybody imagined. My money\u2019s on the second one. In any event, the performances range from okay to hammy, the latter of which defines Nelson who sports a moustache that definitely deserves a credit of its own. Hopper and Sarandon go underused which is an egregious waste of talent. Hauer, in his first starring role in an American film, does pretty well as the hero of the piece. At the time, I knew him best for his villainous roles in Nighthawks and Blade Runner. He was great in both films. With The Osterman Weekend<\/strong>, he shows he can be the good guy too.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019d like to wrap up by talking about a subplot that was removed from The Osterman Weekend<\/strong> when the producers went to work on it post-production. It seems that Tanner was having an affair with his director; that is, until he finds her dead (killed by the CIA, of course) the morning after one of their \u201cmeetings\u201d. It\u2019s supposed to explain the tension between him and his wife, but I don\u2019t see it. To me, it just seems superfluous.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As much as I want to like The Osterman Weekend<\/strong>, it\u2019s just not a good movie. I get that Peckinpah wasn\u2019t in top form when he made it. Studio interference certainly didn\u2019t help matters any. This is one of those rare instances when I\u2019m in full support of a remake. The right filmmaker could do wonders with the material. I doubt they\u2019ll find a better cast than this, but you never know.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Osterman Weekend (1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th Century Fox\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 103 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, nudity, sexual content, language, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Sam Peckinpah\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Alan Sharp\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Lalo Schifrin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John Coquillon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 4, 1983 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Rutger Hauer, John Hurt, Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper, Chris Sarandon, Meg Foster, Helen Shaver, Cassie Yates, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-suspense-thrillers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/The-Osterman-Weekend-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4056"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5527,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4056\/revisions\/5527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}