Here's a Peckinpah movie that starts out really good but falls apart in the last third. It's a story about high-level contract killers and mercenaries hired out in secret by the CIA. The story investigates the friendship between Mike Locken (James Caan) and George Hansen (Robert Duvall), two of the high-class mercenaries working to protect VIPs and radical international diplomats.

The early character development is good, the dialog and accents are all pretty enjoyable on the ears, the camaraderie between the mercenaries is fun to watch (you don't see chemistry like this in action movies anymore!) and the action scenes -- as expected of Peckinpah -- are intense and well thought-out.

There is a considerable amount of hand-to-hand combat on display here. Some of the dojo scenes with Karate/Judo stuff are not bad, but not totally amazing either. It's cool that Peckinpah wanted to include this stuff, but why would high level secret operatives train in Gendai (modern, sportified, public, organized) Japanese martial arts? I thought that was pretty hokey.

And then we have the real problem: later in the film the bad guys are a bunch of ninjas. Ninjas, huh? I understand that the movie is kinda tongue-in-cheek and is about unrealistically tough contract killers and so forth, but the cheesy ninja costumes and the poorly choreographed fight scenes with them (not to mention the abstract and borderline offensive duel regarding "honor") instantly date this movie and make it something of a novelty.

Peckinpah had serious substance abuse problems at this point and maybe that's what causes the weird pacing. Had this movie been shorter and ended at the end of the second third with a more concise message, it would've been pretty solid. It also could've developed some of the supporting characters more than it did.

Still, there are some pretty good things to be found here. Really good action scenes, some memorable characters and dialog, and some decent commentary on corrupt power-players who run politics and business. It's just too bad everyone involved seems to be on autopilot.

The Killer Elite feels like a series of shots and scenes that wax and wane in connectedness to a plot that's also on shaky ground. It feels like it was directed and acted by a team that partied late every night, dragged itself out of bed at noon, and then had to get it together to make a movie before it got too dark. Oh, and no one is really sure how to end it.

It's reported that Sam Peckinpah was near his worst in terms of drugs and booze and you can see it. As one scene shambles and stumbles, the next feels like an honest attempt was made to "get it together". And yet in the following, we're back to trudging through mud.

The best is certainly in the first half where a betrayed and crippled James Caan has a slow road to recovery. Caan seems like he's actually putting in work, here, and his recovery, set against the backdrop of 1970s San Francisco is done well enough to keep our interest.

The second half of the film is a mess. Now mostly recovered, Caan gets back on the job when he finds out the partner who betrayed him is working for the other side. With revenge in mind, he's tasked with escorting some Chinese political dissidents out of the US. What follows is an hour of the most boring "protect the client" action and dialog put to film.

I could go into detail but I'll just say this: Burt Young, who played Paulie from the Rocky films (yes, fat, out of shape, badly balding Paulie) does hand-to-hand combat with hopelessly ineffectual ninjas. If that doesn't tell you how wildly off-track this goes, I don't know what will. There are themes of honor and living life for causes worth dying for, but it's all so poorly and murkily put to screen you're never sure what to latch onto. Everything devolves into a bad B movie with little resolved before the credits mercifully roll.

The Killer Elite 1975 by all accounts, a legendary fiasco of a production, the director drunk most of the time and everyone else snow blind. This is the film where (allegedly) a crew member introduced Sam Peckinpah to cocaine, which didn't seem to help "Bloody Sam's" moody irascibility. James Caan and Robert Duvall give bizarre performances, manic and weird (cocaine is a hell of a drug) and even Burt Young looks glassy-eyed and ringy. The resurrection of the body is the theme. Caan's collapse in a restaurant is briskly cut for maximum shame and helplessness, followed by "Cleft chins and true hearts are out." Then it is mid-70s martial arts on the road to rehabilitation and revenge. After reinstatement, Caan announces, "I'm gonna need some things." and Arthur Hiller says, "Get em," and hands over a huge wad of cash. Burt Young and Bo Hopkins have Caan's back: "One is retired, the other is crazy." Hopkins makes his first appearance shooting skeet with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, "The Poet of Manic Depressives" with his shy smile and aw shucks charm, surely the stand-in for Peckinpah: "I didn't think your company would hire me." Mako gets to sword fight at the end. Absurd. The surprise is how watchable it is.