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 Keogh