The Killer Elite ★★

AMERICAN director Sam Peckinpah made some great films while he was alive, but The Killer Elite wasn’t one of them.

This action thriller was released in 1975 during a period when the maverick director was at the height of his powers, featured The Godfather alumni James Caan and Robert Duvall in leading roles and was co-written by one of the men responsible for films like In the Heat of the Night and Charly.

But despite all this, The Killer Elite is a bit of a meandering mess that fails to reach any dramatic heights.

When you consider that Peckinpah gave us Straw Dogs, The Getaway, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid and Cross of Iron during the same decade, it’s hard to work out what went wrong.

One theory has the legendary director and some of the cast and crew being drunk and/or high for most of the film’s production period, but that’s a little too simplistic.

It seems to be more a combination of substance abuse plus average acting, a poor script and shabby editing, along with an awful music score that would be more appropriate for a cheap porno.

Caan and Duvall play long-time friends and ex-military members of a private intelligence agency working for the CIA.

But, while looking after a witness in a safe house, Duvall’s character, Geoge Hansen, suddenly turns on the other team members. Rather than kill Mike Locken (Caan), Hansen shoots him in the knee and elbow as a way of incapacitating him for good.

But the resourceful and determined goes through intensive rehabilitation followed by specialist martial arts training in order to get back to work and uncover the reason for Hansen’s betrayal.

There are strangely long periods of relative inactivity during the film.

Caan and Duvall spend the first 15 minutes of the film joking around in a manner that suggests they didn’t really care about establishing the characters and then we get an interminable length of time where Caan’s character is getting back on his feet while shacking up with a nurse with whom he goes on extended walks in the park before eventually dumping her.

The proceedings improve when Locken forms a new team to protect a visiting foreign dignitary who is in the sights of a now rogue Hansen,

But, apart from a decent shootout on a busy street, the action is very static, despite the fact this was one of the first American-made films to feature ninjas in fight scenes.

Did I mention the script and motivations for most of the characters are badly under-developed or confusing.

At least the supporting cast includes people like Mako, Arthur Hill, Bo Hopkins, Burt Young and Gig Young who all seem more interested than Caan or Duvall.

I was going to end with a note to not confuse this film with the 2011 sort of remake starring Jason Statham and Robert de Niro, but maybe you should.

Watched on Amazon Prime.