Masterful Movie

Absolutely Fantastic

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

I read through the other three reviews on IMDb for "Company of Killers" and I am apparently a bit happier with the film than them. While I'd say it's far from a must-see film, it is a decent time-passer.The film begins with a guy bleeding in the park. He's discovered by a cop and brought to the hospital. Surprisingly, a few minutes later, he is able to walk off--and the police are naturally baffled. What they don't know is that this injured man is an assassin. The film then follows three main tracks--following the killer, following the organization that hired him and the police as they investigate. Can this guy be stopped in time? The biggest weakness of the movie is that the time between the discovery of Saxon in the park until something serious occurs is about 40 minutes--providing a lot of relatively dull time in between. However, the film is rather realistic in its depiction of police work and the final portion of the movie is pretty exciting. In addition, you get to see a lot of A and B-list celebrities in this one including Van Johnson, Ray Milland, Fritz Weaver, Diana Lynn* and Clu Gulager.*Sadly, this was Lynn's final film, as she died of cancer the same year this film was released. Sadly, although about 45, she looked significantly older here and her part was rather small.

In Denver, Colorado, George DeSalles (Milland) is a hot shot businessman at the top of his profession. He contacts a group of men (the said "hit team") with the intention of killing his wife. This begins to unravel the dominance of the hit team in Denver. The main triggerman is an unstable maniac named Dave Poohler (Saxon). He's frantically going around town trying to hide from the cops, as well as his fellow partners-in-crime. Everyone seems to want to get their hands on this Poohler guy. What will be his fate - and the people searching for him? It appears The Hit Team, or, Company of Killers as it is also known, was originally intended as a TV movie back in 1971, but then got a theatrical release. Flash forward to the 80's, when video stores were hungry for product to fill their shelves. They would take just about anything, regardless of its quality. The Hit Team was probably inexpensive to acquire, and it was simply gussied up with some nifty artwork. It seems The Hit Team is a classic case of being suckered in by the box art. If you look at that yelling guy with the gun, you figure you can't go wrong. Unfortunately, this is a boring, staid, old-fashioned programmer where nothing happens of any excitement.Despite the cast of quality names, this is a dry, dull procedural that doesn't even come close to rising above the pack in any way. It's very slow, especially by today's standards. It's just a bunch of dry, unengaging scenes piled on top of each other. It seems the filmmakers didn't make much effort to really involve the viewer. It's sad, really, because with this cast, the movie had potential. Even though The Hit Team is deservedly obscure, John Saxon does put in a very good performance and manages to stand out. But it's not nearly enough to save the whole movie. People like Ray Milland only add to the sense of stodginess. Saxon can't hope to overcome that.Because it was 1971, there are some great mustaches and big hair on display, and the movie even starts out like Police Squad! (or The Naked Gun series) with a camera mounted on top of a police car as it drives around. The way we viewed the movie was the Canadian VHS, released on Ambassador Video. There are some notable errors on the box (besides the fact that they make the movie out to be something that it's not) - they list the running time as 90 minutes, but it's really 72. According to the description, "Their intention is to fulful numerous contracts". I know I had a sense of fulfulment. Also, someone named "Glu" Gulager is involved. We realize "Clu" isn't the most common name, but Glu? Come on. Maybe the box was written by a French Canadian that had never tried his hand at English before.In all, we feel The Hit Team will more than likely bore you to tears. Really the only reason to ever buy this VHS is for lovers of box art that want this cover in their collection. Otherwise, unless you want a cure for insomnia, we say avoid.

This 1971 impersonal Universal Studios release is dreary and predictable fare. Despite adequate performances from a multi-culturally correct cast, this metropolitan crime thriller boasts little to distinguish it from dozens of similar police procedurals. Initially, "Company of Killers" struck me as pilot episode for a proposed television series. The ambitious story involves a variety of characters, but the shallow story never pays off with exciting shenanigans. Cops find the killer. Cops lose the killer. Cops find the killer and guess what? Essentially, "Company of Killers" is an old-fashioned manhunt with the cops pursuing an armed and dangerous gunsel. John Saxon radiates more charisma as a murderous villain than Van Johnson, Clu Gulager, Fritz Weaver, or Brian Kelly can muster as sympathetic good guys. In other words, the police are portrayed as squares. They lack dimension and personality. Inevitably, a good cop with a family dies in the line of duty and this energizes the heroes to track down the miscreant. Veteran television scribe E. Jack Neuman snaps all the clichés together so it has a prefabricated feel with little spontaneity. The episode in the city parking garage generates the most excitement as our villain crashes a Corvette when he tries to run a target down.Chummy but tight-lipped married guy Van Johnson plays a police officer who has to defend his actions to a liberal newspaper reporter played by personable Clu Gulager. Although he delivers the death blow at the finale in a city parking garage, Johnson behaves more like a mannequin modeling his wardrobe. He walks around and talks to everybody but the villains. He converses with the uniformed officers, tolerates the liberal journalist, obeys the District Attorney, adores his teenage daughter, and frowns at the boy who wants to date her. Mind you, Johnson is impeccably attired and coiffed, with a loyal wife and pretty daughter who occupies his thoughts. In other words, he played a moribund character "Day of the Evil Gun" director Jerry Thorpe doesn't let the general mediocrity of the plot keep him from staging the action with some finesse. There isn't a memorable line anywhere in "Company of Killers." The on-location shooting in Colorado gives this formulaic story a fresh setting. The well-known cast is impressive. Ray Milland plays a villain who really isn't a bad guy. He just doesn't have any luck."Company of Killers" opens with Dave (John Saxon) sprawled in a snow-swept park with a bullet wound. A mounted policeman on horseback finds him, and they transport him to the hospital. Not long after Dr. Nick Andros (Brian Kelly of NBC-TV's "Flipper") attends to him, Dave escapes. He heads back to the park to retrieve the pistol that he ditched in the snow. Forty or more minutes elapse before a uniformed officer dies in a gunfight at a hotel. Dave has been seen in the hotel. Johnson surrounds the place with his men, but Dave surprises a cop as he leaves the apartment. They struggle with each other and the cop shoots the woman in the apartment by accident when Dave deflects his arm. Dave kills the cop, Lucas, and the manhunt intensifies. Milland plays a corporate stereotype that plots to kill his superior (Robert Middleton) to keep from going bankrupt. Fritz Weaver plays the middle man who arranges the contracts for murder for his clients and pays top gun Dave to snuff them. Brian Kelly is the handsome emergency room doctor who tries to keep them alive. Some of the photography is catchy, but this chilly thriller set in Denver is just another way to burn time. Actor Anthony James appears out of character as a clean-cut individual in expensive wardrobe.

This is a very run of the mill TV movie that somehow got diverted to the big screen. I don't know why, except maybe they had trouble with some of the violence and material when it was first made (then again this was apparently G rated when it played in theaters). The plot has a hit man on the run from both the cops and the mob after a cop is shot. Its well acted by the cast (Ray Milland, Van Johnson, Fritz Weaver, and other TV movie stalwarts of the 1970's) but everyone seems to be there more for a paycheck than for anything else. Only John Saxon seems to be there for more than a paycheck. Actually Saxon's performance seemed to make me think that this wasn't a hack TV movie. I apologize for not being more detailed but while the movie wasn't bad it wasn't very good either, it just sort lays there, not really a movie movie, and not really a TV movie. Watching this late last night I found myself slowly being put to sleep by it while at the same time trying to remain awake enough to find out what happened next (which does score points for it). Once it was over I moved on to other, more lively things and was wide awake for those. I guess the best thing I can say, its not bad, but if you can watch something else you might want to.