The Osterman Weekend (1983)

A man discovers that his best friends are actually spies -- or are they? -- in this thriller based on Robert Ludlum's best-selling novel. John Tanner (Rutger Hauer) is the host of a television news show who once a year spends a long weekend with three of his best friends from college, Bernard Osterman (Craig T. Nelson), Joseph Cardone (Chris Sarandon), and Richard Tremayne (Dennis Hopper). Tanner is approached by Lawrence Fassett (John Hurt), a CIA agent who has evidence proving that his three pals are actually agents working with the Soviet Union. With Tanner's reluctant approval, his house is wired with video surveillance equipment so that the CIA can monitor what Osterman, Cardone, and Tremayne say and do over their weekend together in hopes of putting the traitors behind bars. However, Tanner soon realizes that Fassett's agenda is not all that it appears to be. The Osterman Weekend was directed by Sam Peckinpah; it proved to be his last film, as he died a year after its release.

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Review By Mike Cummings

In this 1983 film, director Sam Peckinpah serves up an arabesque plot, germ warfare, and paranoia to turn a quiet, unassuming weekend get-together into a Salvador Dali adventure involving a netherworld of bugged rooms and alleged spies and communists. The film is not easy to understand, thanks to the complexity of the plot and the mischievous mind of Peckinpah. But there is a smashing car chase for viewers who favor that sort of thing. The acting and dialogue are quite good, and no small amount of pleasure may be derived from attempting to fathom the motives of the characters and the roles of the CIA, the KGB, and a spy ring called Omega. CIA operative Lawrence Fasset (John Hurt) gets the plot going after Soviet agents in collusion with the CIA murder his wife. After enlisting the help of talk show host John Tanner (Rutger Hauer), Fasset and Tanner assemble a group of husbands and wives for a weekend of socializing at Tanner's home. Among the guests are operatives in the service of the KGB--supposedly--who may have had a hand in the death of Fasset's wife. The film then ventures into the bizarre Peckinpah world of plot twists and psychological surprises. Among the interlocutors with ambiguous tongues are Dennis Hopper as Richard Tremayne and Craig T. Nelson as Bernard Osterman. Viewers who enjoy solving the Rubik's Cube and The New York Times crossword puzzle will probably like this film, although it received mixed reviews from critics.