Sadly Over-hyped

An Exercise In Nonsense

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

With Cliff Robertson, Ernest Borgnine, and Henry Silva on board, I was expecting a lot more than "Shoot" delivered. Character development is virtually nil, and Silva's part could easily been played by a no name actor. Sandwitched between the opening ambush and the final shootout in the snow, is some filler that has no bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the movie. A chatty widow and a friend's wife throwing themselves at Cliff Robertson feels like nothing more than script stretching. "Shoot"'s similarity to "Rituals" and "Hunter's Blood", two other "Deliverance" clones is unmistakable, but they are far superior movies. A BIG letdown. - MERK

Harvey Hart's SHOOT is easily as paranoid a 1970s movie to come out of the paranoid 70s as I have ever seen, other than perhaps Hart's own 1973 urban Gothic horror nightmare THE PYX -- a film which left me feeling uneasy for days. He is good at it. This one is more of an intriguing idea run amok, supposedly based on a novel of about the same name that I will simply have to seek out after finally managing to "get" the movie.The situations under which I first encountered it played a part in why it failed to impress upon the first sitting; I chose this as a party night movie, expecting another OPEN SEASON or RITUALS or even WOLF LAKE, three other films which deal with war veterans encountering human barbarity in the great outdoors that are raucous fun by comparison. SHOOT even gives an important supporting role to Henry Silva -- "Mr. Ice" -- one of my favorite actors to have graduated from the Italian genre film era where he headlined in a number of amusingly amoral & gory crime thrillers.SHOOT however, in spite of its subject matter of beer swilling humans hunting other humans for kicks out in the woods, is about as close to a thoughtful drama as I have allowed on my TV set since Paul Schrader's equally paranoid ROLLING THUNDER. Where that film explored America's painful post-Vietnam hangover in starkly arid rural themes, SHOOT is a Canadian tax shelter film that likewise explores another hangover from the scourges of war out in the chilly sticks of Ontario. Specifically the scars left on Cliff Robertson's Major Rex, a decorated Canadian war hero who secretly yearns to do it all over again. All he needs is an excuse to play army man again for real, and the story is about his apparent glee at having one handed to him.If nothing else, SHOOT is a sort of cinematic proof that men go deer hunting because they can't hunt each other anymore. The core premise of the film has two hunting parties encountering each other on a hum-drum day with no game in sight. For reasons that the film wisely never bothers to explain they start shooting at each other and someone gets their brains blown out. I say wisely because to try and put a motivation to the first shot is pointless: They were guys with guns out looking to for things to shoot at with them, and when humans get together in groups under such situations things often happen that have no rational explanation. The guy opened fire because that's what a gun is for, the other group fired back to defend themselves, and Henry Silva aces the bozo right between the eyes from about 175 yards without thinking twice about it. So far so good. That's what Henry Silva is usually in a movie for.The film then shifts gears and becomes about the paranoia that develops within the group as they debate what to do about it, hence the tagline about how SHOOT takes up where DELIVERANCE ends. But its more than that as the communal paranoia apparently pushes Robertson's over-the-top Major Rex right over the line into active psychosis. He seems to think he's General Patton at one point in the film's most bizarre scene where he calls his war council of aging buddies together. His solution is to muster "volunteers" from the local militia group he commands, arm them with automatic weapons in full combat garb with steel helmets, and go back to the site of the incident to engage in a private little war with the other group, provided of course the other guys show up likewise armed for a fully pitched battle. They do.The final 10 minutes of the film pack as much mayhem and violence into it as your standard Department of Defense documentary on The Battle of Iwo Jima as the two forces tear into each other with a ferocity that is totally out of proportion to anything that the film hinted at up until then. Absolute mayhem. If Robertson's closing monologue is to be believed his entire 20 man assault force is annihilated in the bloodbath, raising the curious question of how local Canadian authorities might have reacted to such a body count. Though within the context of the film it was the only ending possible. War is hell, and without an actual war men will cheerfully create their own hells to fill the vacuum.So I say SHOOT is actually about Major Rex' spiral into functional insanity and the close bond between his hunting buddies that drags them down the toilet with him. It certainly isn't a fun movie but does have a kind of visual authority to it that is quite authentic. The outdoor sequences are well staged and the final shootout on a snow strewn woodland scene is something right out of Korea. The interior of the men's homes, bedecked with weapons of war as decorative pieces, is also something striking. It's about as un-romantic a depiction as possible, showing us warriors displaced in a society that seems to feed their paranoia without thinking twice about itThey aren't even the heroes of the movie, just its protagonists. Like THE PYX there aren't any genuinely sympathetic characters in the cast aside from Ernst Borgnine's reluctant war buddy who doesn't know if this is all such a good idea. It isn't a particularly fun movie but was very well made on somewhat limited resources and makes for thoughtful viewing once you get beyond its deliberately methodical pace. Just don't be fooled by pictures of Henry Silva packing a Swedish K sub machine gun into thinking it's going to be a laugh riot like I was. It's not that kind of a movie at all, and faulting it for being what it is rather than what it's not misses the point.7/10

Cliff Robertson was involved in some pretty decent movies in 1976 – "Midway", "Obsession" and the TV movie "Return To Earth" spring to mind. The same cannot be said for Ernest Borgnine for whom 1976 was an 'annus horriblis' in terms of film work. Not only did Borgnine find himself in the dire Italian sex film "Natale In Casa D'Appuntamento", he also co-starred with Robertson in one of the very worst films of the year – the utterly wretched anti-gun thriller "Shoot". You will have to look far and wide for a more boring, obvious, unappealing and morally muddled film than this Canadian offering from director Harvey Hart. It doesn't even fall into the so-bad-it's-good-on-a-curiosity-level category.By day, Rex Jeanette (Cliff Robertson) runs a successful furniture business, but he really lives for evenings and weekends when he and his buddies run an army club and go deer hunting in the nearby forests. One weekend, four of the regular deer hunters travel up to Rex's woodland lodge for a Saturday shooting expedition. Besides Rex himself, there are his pals Lou (Ernest Borgnine), Zeke (Henry Silva) and Pete (James Blendick). Whilst out in the forest they encounter another group of hunters, but for no obvious reason the other group open fire on them and Zeke shoots back, killing one of the opposite group's guys. In panic, Rex's group return home and contemplate their next move – Lou wants to report the incident to the cops, but Zeke is worried that he might be jailed for killing a man, and Rex himself thinks the other group won't report the incident because it was them who shot first. As the week progresses it becomes clear that Rex is right – when the story of the hunter's death finally appears in the newspapers, it turns out that his friends have fabricated a story about how he was killed by an accidental stray bullet. Rex realises that the other group want to have revenge their own way, and figures that the two sides are expected to revisit the site of their earlier encounter to shoot it out. Strangely excited at the prospect, Rex recruits extra men and gathers extra ammunition for the second shoot-out, almost turning the whole affair into a weekend military war game. But when the confrontation finally comes, which side will be most prepared?......For about ten minutes, "Shoot" gives no indication of just how poor it is going to be. The opening sequence in which Rex and his hunting pals run across the other hunting party is put together with enough competence to suggest that a half-decent outdoor thriller might be on the cards. But from there forth, the film is a long-winded bore. We trudge through the whole week leading up to the second shoot-out, watching Rex and his buddies going about their daily lives, meeting up after work to plan their attack. This section of the film goes on and on and on, stumbling from one pointless debate/argument/meeting to another. Watching paint dry is preferable to sticking with the film through this particular segment. When the final shoot-out comes it is over faster than you can blink, and culminates with a pretentious "twist" that has been obvious for the entire length of the film. At any point you might think to yourself: "what if the other group are preparing themselves better? What if they want it more? What if they arm themselves stronger? What if they plan their attack with greater cunning?" If any of those thoughts occur to you, then you're smarter than Rex Jeanette…. and you're infinitely smarter than director Harvey Hart expects you to be!

CIA Counterintelligence Division Chief was anxious to depict for the general public and specific employees of the U.S. Government an event that had actually ocurred on North American sovereign territory. The facts of this incident were that small units of the Soviet Special Forces [Spetznaz] were indeed crossing the U.S./Canada border and conducting special operations near our missile sites in the Dakotas and Montana, and were permanently based in numerous sanctuary sites within Canada. Moreover, the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police]had repeatedly failed to locate and identify these numerous safe-sites and safe-houses. It was discovered later that Soviet moles within the Canadian Government were responsible for sabotaging ALL of the RCMP counterintelligence and law enforcement efforts for years!The writer "Douglas Fairbairn" was actually a CIA Officer using a cover name, and selected the name because of his fondness for the "Fairbairn" Commando Knives that were part of large collection, and respect for the famous British Police Officer [based in Hong Kong] who had designed the knife during World War II.Unfortunately, security and political concerns caused extensive censoring of the final movie script and within a year of its release it was pulled out of circulation and became extremely difficult to locate and obtain, even to this day!Limited portions of Angleton's files were released under the JFK Act and the CIA Historical Review Act. Numerous attempts [via The Freedom of Information Act/FOIA] to declassify files that refer to both this movie and the activities of Soviet Special Forces inside the United States have been thwarted at every turn. This includes attempts by the Assassinations Records Review Board [1990s] and the House Select Committee on Assassinations [1970s] investigators.GPH