hat’s the C.I.A.”? Mike Locken (James Caan) and George Hansen (Robert Duvall) are two of the main operatives (or mercenaries) who work for a mysterious private intelligence agency (Communications Integrity, or ComTeg) that does the dirty work that governments don’t want to admit to sanctioning. And their latest assignment involves the standard extrication of an asset, along with his relocation to a safe house. Many countries rely on a comparable special department for eliminating defectors and spies and traitors, but the United States denies employing such a division; and if it did, they’d certainly never admit to it. Indeed, leader Lawrence Weyburn (Gig Young) goes on the record to refute the existence of his particular organization.

Weirdly, Locken and Hansen are goofballs, initially cracking jokes and making light of their missions. It’s a stark contrast to their behaviors to come, when Hansen goes rogue, turning on his colleagues. After Mike (who actually does retain some levity) is wounded and spends a spell in the ICU, it’s determined that he’ll never be useful to the company again; as such, he’ll be forced to collect disability payments. But he’s determined to get back to work; despite months and months of physical therapy and a prognosis of limited functionality, he won’t let a thing like the predominant losses of his left leg and arm stop him from remaining an elite killer. “I’m coming back full-duty.”

Coincidentally, like in “The French Connection II” released the same year, there’s a somewhat overlong, highly detailed recovery segment that puts a lengthy pause on the excitement of this thriller – especially since the basic premise involves revenge. Numerous sequences even chronicle Mike’s steady recovery in the realm of martial arts, where he works out and trains to regain his hand-to-hand combat skills (“The Killer Elite” is considered to be one of the earliest American films to feature ninjas). It takes a detrimental amount of time before a mentionable return to action, which is the unlikely job of protecting an Asian politician from a team of international assassins. “Heroism has become old-fashioned.”

Similarly, there’s a surprising amount of dialogue, most of which is extraneous chatter and casual conversing (and bizarre confessions). Although it tends to slow down the pacing, it also helps to make the interactions feel considerably more genuine, intermittently aiding character development. The speeches are so slow and wordy, in fact, that they remove any suggestion or subtlety; it’s even repetitious enough that audiences should be able to follow exactly how every character is related to each other, chiefly with dodgy allegiances, despite the fact that the cast is inundated with roles – including covert specialists Mac (Burt Young) and Miller (Bo Hopkins), who aren’t introduced until more than an hour in. “Don’t hurt anybody just for fun, okay?”

With Sam Peckinpah at the helm (working from a Robert Rostand novel), the anticipated violence is excessively brutal, with blood exploding and splattering from wounds to an exaggerated degree (embellished with his signature slow-motion). Shootouts and car chases arrive too, even if late enough that viewers will still clearly remember the drag of the first two acts. Sadly, the bulk of the picture is waiting; waiting for rehabilitation, waiting for orders, waiting for amateurish mistakes, waiting for ambushes, waiting for negotiations to end, and waiting for action. Some of it may be sincere and heavy-hitting; the decision to have Locken and Hansen settle their rivalry prior to the climax is a rather singular move, as well as utilizing a ship graveyard for a visually engaging setting for the finale. But by the end, it’s all entirely too uneventful.

– Mike Massie