Basically a chase thriller in which an experienced hit man working for an unnamed government agency (Scott Glenn) takes personal revenge on a former friend, irritating his employers and prompting them to send a team of two other hit men (including Harvey Keitel) to rub him out. But the wily Glenn takes two hostages (Craig Wasson and Giovanna Zacarias) and leads the pursuing pair on a merry chase along "the highways and by-ways of this dysentery factory." In the end, the unnamed government agency is satisfied that Glenn is offed and the incident closed. In reality, Glenn and Zacarias have fallen for one another, made a successful escape, and are living a happy life in a mountain cabin.
The fact that the government agency is unnamed should give you a hint about what kind of story this is. It's one that won't step on anybody's toes, including the CIA and Mexican law enforcement agents.
The story as sketched in above is really rather skeletal, I know, but there's not really that much more to the plot. The performances vary a lot in their quality. Scott Glenn is his taciturn icy self, his face and torso more etched with experience than ever. Giovanna Zacarias is by no means beautiful in any ordinary sense, yet her character is intelligent, empathic, and proud. She has strong features and glistening black eyes and although she may have been a whore ("the woman of desperation") she might just be the kind of puta you would think about taking home to Mamma. Keitel combines being laid back with being as tense as an unsprung jack-in-the-box. Craig Wasson sounds like Albert Brooke and looks a little like him. He does not deliver anything I could detect as a believable line.
If you are being kept captive by a CIA hit man and wanted to sneak away, would YOU constantly argue with him and your girl friend? Would you shout at him in a public restaurant? In other words, would you do everything you possibly could to make him keep his eye on you? That's not entirely Wasson's fault. He can only say what the script orders him to, and the script doesn't really give anyone too much to work with. The betrayed hero of Vietnam is already a cliché, with his flashbacks and bitterness leading him into violence. In the course of the film, he is humanized by Zacarias ("Luz", great name). And once she understands the source of his torment she undergoes a kind of Mazatlan Syndrome and bonds with him.
There's something else that creeps into the story, or tries to, from time to time. There's religious imagery all over the place. And there's a good deal of talk about God and forgiveness. It simply doesn't hang together though. (The novel might have dealt with these questions a little more effectively.) The last time Glenn prayed was when he was being tortured by the Vietnamese, and he prayed for death. When God didn't answer, he gave up on God and believes God now reciprocates. Well, Luz still believes in forgiveness and she must have been right because that mountain cabin at the end is sure idyllic.
The fact that the government agency is unnamed should give you a hint about what kind of story this is. It's one that won't step on anybody's toes, including the CIA and Mexican law enforcement agents.
The story as sketched in above is really rather skeletal, I know, but there's not really that much more to the plot. The performances vary a lot in their quality. Scott Glenn is his taciturn icy self, his face and torso more etched with experience than ever. Giovanna Zacarias is by no means beautiful in any ordinary sense, yet her character is intelligent, empathic, and proud. She has strong features and glistening black eyes and although she may have been a whore ("the woman of desperation") she might just be the kind of puta you would think about taking home to Mamma. Keitel combines being laid back with being as tense as an unsprung jack-in-the-box. Craig Wasson sounds like Albert Brooke and looks a little like him. He does not deliver anything I could detect as a believable line.
If you are being kept captive by a CIA hit man and wanted to sneak away, would YOU constantly argue with him and your girl friend? Would you shout at him in a public restaurant? In other words, would you do everything you possibly could to make him keep his eye on you? That's not entirely Wasson's fault. He can only say what the script orders him to, and the script doesn't really give anyone too much to work with. The betrayed hero of Vietnam is already a cliché, with his flashbacks and bitterness leading him into violence. In the course of the film, he is humanized by Zacarias ("Luz", great name). And once she understands the source of his torment she undergoes a kind of Mazatlan Syndrome and bonds with him.
There's something else that creeps into the story, or tries to, from time to time. There's religious imagery all over the place. And there's a good deal of talk about God and forgiveness. It simply doesn't hang together though. (The novel might have dealt with these questions a little more effectively.) The last time Glenn prayed was when he was being tortured by the Vietnamese, and he prayed for death. When God didn't answer, he gave up on God and believes God now reciprocates. Well, Luz still believes in forgiveness and she must have been right because that mountain cabin at the end is sure idyllic.
