Shoot to Kill (1988)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Roger Spottiswoode

Writers:

Harv Zimmel (story)
Harv Zimmel (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

12 February 1988 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

It's about staying alive.

Plot:

A man is discovered breaking into his own jewelery shop in the dead of night. Questioned closely, it...

Plot Keywords:

Chase | Escape | FBI | Wilderness | Hiking

Cast

Sidney Poitier	...	Warren Stantin
Tom Berenger	...	Jonathan Knox
Kirstie Alley	...	Sarah Renell
Clancy Brown	...	Steve
Richard Masur	...	Norman
Andrew Robinson	...	Harvey
Kevin Scannell	...	Ben
Frederick Coffin	...	Ralph
Michael MacRae	...	Fournier
Robert Lesser	...	Agent Minelli
Milton Selzer	...	Mr. Berger
Les Lannom	...	Sheriff Dave Arnett
Walter Marsh	...	Sam Baker
Frank C. Turner	...	Austin Crilley
Sam Hiona	...	Inspector Hsu (as Samuel Hiona)

Also Known As:

Deadly Pursuit (UK)
Mountain Man (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

109 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) | Dolby SR (35 mm prints)

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Canada:18A (Ontario) | Netherlands:12 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Norway:15 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

British Properties, West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Company:

Touchstone Pictures

Trivia:

Called "Deadly Pursuit" in the UK. Because of the recent massacre in Hungerford, where Micheal Ryan had gone on a shooting rampage killing around dozen people and injuring a number of others, it was thought to be in bad taste to release a film with "shoot" in the title.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The ferry is supposed to be over deep water, with several shots of something sinking to murky depths, but when a character is seen being rescued by an unassisted swimmer the lake floor can be seen behind him with surface light shining down.

Quotes:

[Stantin is made to step into a freezing cold stream]
Warren Stantin: Son of a bitch!
Jonathan Knox: What did you say?
Warren Stantin: I said I hate the damn woods!

Movie Connections:

References Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955)

Soundtrack:

I Love a Parade

Some Inconvenient Allies

After an eleven year absence from the screen, Sidney Poitier chose to return in an action/adventure film where he plays an FBI agent in search of a killer.

He's got good reason to want this guy bad. His quarry is ruthless and kills without mercy. Poitier loses a hostage and the ransom he's asked for. But some good detective work has traced the man to a remote part of the Pacific Northwest.

Where the perpetrator has killed again and joined a party of dry fly fishermen being guided by Kirstie Alley into the rugged mountains. No place for a city kid like Poitier, says mountaineer/hermit Tom Berenger who has the prerequisite skills to get the job done. These two are forced into an alliance of inconvenience.

The best thing I liked about Shoot To Kill is the guessing game we play for the identity of the perpetrator. Any one of the five men in Kirstie Alley's party could have been the killer. Look at the cast list and you'll recognize a few names who've played some pretty loathsome villains in the past. The identity is revealed suddenly and quite shockingly.

What I didn't like with Shoot To Kill is the fact that the final confrontation with the perpetrator is in big city Vancouver where he's escaped with Alley. He needed her in the woods, not any longer, she should have wound up dead. And Berenger and Poitier should have confronted him in the woods.

That script decision made the climax a rather ordinary one that you see in a whole lot of police chase films. Still all the players do fine here, my favorite being Kirstie Alley as the woods smart guide.