THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND. Directed by Sam Peckinpah; written by Alan Sharpe; produced by Peter S. David and William N. Panzer for 20th Century Fox. Starring Rutger Hauer and John Hurt. Rated R (violence, nudity and language).
More reviews by —
TITLE:
RATING:
There is another movie in town about old friends reunited for a weekend. But The Osterman Weekend is about as different from The Big Chill as you can get. Osterman is an exciting thriller with an excellent cast. But its story is unrealistic and contains enough violence and sordid nudity to turn lots of viewers off.
John Tanner (Hauer) is a TV interviewer. He gets mixed up in schemes of intrigue and counter-intrigue at the highest levels of the intelligence community. Revealing much more of the plot would spoil some of the surprises. And, suspense is the movie's strongest point.
The acting also falls on the plus side of the ledger. Hauer, who was the real star of Blade Runner, is very compelling here and is the only likeable male figure.
But he is almost too nice in his private scenes. It's hard to believe he's the same guy who goes for the jugular so readily in his interviews.
Hurt is wonderfully mysterious as a CIA agent. The supporting cast is good as well, but they're almost all creeps and that wears a little after a while.
One who brings another dimension to his character is Craig T. Nelson. He plays a TV writer friend of Tanner's. Nelson seems, whenever I see him, to be playing the same character. But he still manages to fit each story like a glove.
An interesting counterpoint to the main story is its satire of television. There are TVs all over Tanner's house, where most of the action takes place. And a lot of that action is provoked via the tube. Not only are the sidelong comments about TV's impact well-made, they also provide the movie's only humorous moments, aside from Nelson's one-liners.
Osterman has some gruesome scenes, but there's not as much gore as one might expect from directory Peckinpah, who brought us The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs among other ultra-violent pix. The sex is almost more objectionable here.
There is an exhibitionistic quality to the sex scenes which made my skin crawl. Part of the unpleasantness stems from the theme of Everyman as voyeur. Though it's an interesting idea, that doesn't make the scenes any easier to watch.
Paranoia is an important motivating force in Osterman. Peckinpah is good at spreading that paranoia to the audience. But I dislike being manipulated by a movie to the point where I want to cheer when someone is killed in a particularly grisly fashion. It happened when the man trap was sprung on one of the thugs in Straw Dogs. And it happens during The Osterman Weekend.
Both are exciting and well-made movies, but they're not much fun to watch.
November 16, 1983