The Osterman Weekend (1983)

Director:

Sam Peckinpah

Writers:

Robert Ludlum (novel)
Ian Masters (adaptation)

Release Date:

14 October 1983 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

The one weekend of the year you won't want to miss.

Plot:

The host of an investigative news show is convinced by the CIA that the friends he has invited to a...

Plot Keywords:

Friend | Conspiracy | Weekend | CIA | Beaten To Death

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Rutger Hauer	...	John Tanner
John Hurt	...	Lawrence Fassett
Craig T. Nelson	...	Bernard Osterman
Dennis Hopper	...	Richard Tremayne
Chris Sarandon	...	Joseph Cardone
Meg Foster	...	Ali Tanner
Helen Shaver	...	Virginia Tremayne
Cassie Yates	...	Betty Cardone
Sandy McPeak	...	Stennings
Christopher Starr	...	Steve Tanner
Burt Lancaster	...	Maxwell Danforth
Cheryl Carter	...	Marcia Heller
John Bryson	...	Honeymoon Groom
Anne Haney	...	Honeymoon Bride
Kristen Peckinpah	...	Tremayne's Secretary

Also Known As:

Mission CIA (Philippines: English title)

Runtime:

103 min | USA:116 min (director's cut)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Finland:K-16 (2000) | Finland:K-18 (1983) | Norway:15 (re-rating) | Norway:16 (original rating) | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (video re-rating) (2004) | UK:18 (original rating) | UK:18 (video rating) (1986) | USA:R (certificate #27156) | West Germany:16 | Australia:M

Company:

Osterman Weekend Associates

Trivia:

Sam Peckinpah was fired when he refused to re-edit the film after it was screened for a test audience on 25 May 1983 and met with a confused and extremely mixed reaction. Producers Peter S. Davis and William N. Panzer took over the editing with the assistance of editor Edward M. Abroms, drastically altering opening and ending sequences.

Goofs:

Miscellaneous: When Tanner is warning the others to get out of the camper, he writes "Get out now". Richard is reading it aloud as "Get out of the camper now".

Quotes:

Lawrence Fassett: John, time for a face to face.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: Operation Double 007 (#6.8)" (1993)

complicated revenge story

I was not sure what to expect from this when I watched it, but what I felt after seeing it was not that I'd just seen a great film. This was Sam Peckinpah's last, and while I'm not any fan of his I know he had done far better. John Hurt plays a CIA operative (I guess) and his wife is killed by order of the head honcho, as played by Burt Lancaster. Some time later, Hurt has devised a way to get back at his old boss via a TV talk show host, of sorts, as played by Rutger Hauer, who has a get-together at his place every year for some friends of his. However, these friends of his have now been presented to him as possible Soviet spies, and he's been shown taped footage (that of course, only allows him to see seemingly incriminating conversations) to prove that. So now he's housing some Soviet spies for the weekend and things turn tense and get out of hand, and so on. Meg Foster, who plays Hauer's wife, gets away with her son & their crossbows and comes back later for some target practice with the real thing. The rest of the guests pile into an RV and are heading for the hills but they won't get far. And then Hurt manages to kidnap Hauer's wife, son, & dog, in order to finally get what he really wants, to expose his old boss. It's not a bad story, I guess, but it's very confusing and complicated and completely lost me a few times, because (I'm guessing here) there are things that the film seems to assume that you know, as in, you've read the book by Robert Ludlum, which I hadn't. Of course, this was also Peckinpah's last film & if you know anything about him, he had his problems, and maybe this is the end result of some of that too, who knows. I wouldn't call this terrible, but it's certainly not very well executed and could have been far better in the right hands. 5 out of 10.