The Osterman Weekend
by Sam Peckinpah
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Chris Sarandon, Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper, John Hurt, Rutger HauerDirector: Sam Peckinpah
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 102 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-03-23
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Movie Reviews of The Osterman Weekend
Movie Review: "Just Because I Don't Care Doesn't Mean I Don't Understand"
Summary: 1 Stars
While some critics attacked `The Osterman Weekend' as not making any sense and having an incoherent plot, I understood it just fine. I just didn't like it.
With an impressive cast and intriguing premise `The Osterman Weekend' seems like a sure hit. However I was unable to find a single redeeming element of the film.
The plot: Rutger Hauer stars as an expose' talk show journalist planning for annual college reunion with Berkeley alumni at his estate. Enter CIA agent John Hurt whom confronts Hauer with evidence that his three best friends, Craig T Nelson, Dennis Hopper, and Chris Sarandon are KGB agents planning to kill him.
Hauer is skeptical but after Hurt stages a kidnapping of Mrs. Hauer and son and blames it on the KGB, Hauer is compelled to allow Hurt to place elaborate surveillance video and armed guards at his weekend vacation. Hurt hopes through a series of mind games to expose the Hauer's "friends" as the traitors they are.
Hence the weekend vacation becomes a soap opera from hell with the four men each suspecting and accusing while their trophy spouses bicker.
Hurt's true motives are finally revealed on Hauer's TV show as an elaborate plot to destroy CIA director Burt Lancaster whom Hurt blames for his wife's death.
None of this is interesting and the good acting cannot save the fact the 25% of the film is voyeuristic characters watching spouses make love in surprisingly graphic sex scenes. No it's not sexy if it was at least that would be something.
The music score is also horrible as it sounds like bad lounge music. An odd score for a thriller.
The director even acknowledged embarrassment in the final product putting the blame on the studio's last minute edits. I put the blame on the novel's author Robert Ludlum. Whoever is to blame for making `The Osterman Weekend' you have only yourself to blame if you see it. You have been forewarned. It has no redeeming value.
Summary of The Osterman Weekend
Sam Peckinpah's final film has a lot to recommend it, including a complicated story derived from a Robert Ludlum novel but laced with Peckinpah's hard questions about loyalty and the balance between civilization and basic instincts. Rutger Hauer stars as John Tanner, a television host with strong criticisms of America's cold-war conduct. Looking forward to a weekend of socializing with old friends (played by Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper, and Chris Sarandon), Tanner is approached by a CIA agent (John Hurt) who tells him his friends may be Soviet agents. Tanner agrees to let the spy agency set up surveillance in his house; it turns out there is more to the agent's claims than meets the eye and Tanner's weekend eventually erupts into violence. Osterman is not Peckinpah at his best (though, typically, the director was under siege from production politics), but the maestro of montage certainly worked in some extraordinary action sequences. --Tom KeoghAction & Adventure DVD Video
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