Shoot to Kill

Roger Spottiswoode directed this no-nonsense thriller which stars Sidney Poitier as a city-slicker FBI man who teams up with taciturn backwoodsman Tom Berenger to catch a killer. The movie fairly shines with competence; all the performers are excellent, including Kirstie Alley as Berenger’s girlfriend, taken hostage in the mountains. The direction is snappy, the photography crisp, and the plot leaps forward so that even the long pursuit through the mountains never lags. There are shades of “The Defiant Ones” here, of course, as well as “In the Heat of the Night,” not to mention “48 Hrs.” and a bunch of other pictures in which two completely different types must join forces to save the day, and they gradually come to respect each other. But here the old paradigm is given new life by Poitier and Berenger, who are not only of different race but (perhaps even a wider gulf) of different backgrounds. They both bring a certain dignity to their roles, so that you can see the qualities in each man. And of course, they find out that they make a good team. Poitier actually comes out ahead however, in that he gets to be the hero out in the woods a couple of times, while once back in the city, Berenger is set to trailing along forlornly; he should have been given a chance to do something studly. One nice feature here is that the bad guy isn't just a (boring) psycho, but rather a cunning robber and killer of terrifying remorselessness. The scene in which he throws several people off a cliff is blood curdling. This quality does create one plot incongruity however. The killer drags Alley along because he needs her to get out of the wilderness; once safely back in the city he would certainly have killed her right away. Instead he keeps her around, so that she can be rescued. (But that's OK; Kirstie Alley should always be kept around.) Anyway, while this is hardly immortal cinema, for straight ahead excitement with no frills (including one incredible bone crunching stunt) this is hard to beat.