snowleopard
This film was well hyped when released, with trailers and ads talking about the power and efficiency of the Ingram sub-machinegun, what happens when hunting trips go wrong, and revenge. The movie only lived up to the hype in the first, and last scenes, but the concept is still sound. This is a story that could be remade, or explored in a new film.The story starts out with a great set-up when a group of friends (very good actors - Cliff Robertson, Ernest Borgnine, Henry Silva) venture out hunting in the Canadian wilderness. The story shifts when they encounter a "rival" group of hunters in the distance. After an accident of sorts, both sides retreat. When no one reports the accident from the other side, ex-military Major Cliff Robertson becomes convinced the other guys are plotting against them. Great set-up so far.Here is where the film bogs down, way bogs down. It's like they had about fifteen minutes of information, and spread it out over the next hour giving us unnecessary details on character development, and wordy dialog that didn't properly explore the ethics of the hunter's situation and dilemmas. By the time the climax approaches you're almost asleep wondering what the heck too so long. However, when the final scenes finally do arrive and the story picks up steam again, it commands attention and will not leave you disappointed.If you get a chance to see this movie, pay close attention to the beginning, don't worry about popcorn or potty breaks during the middle, and wake up for the ending.As of August of 2006, you're going to have to look for this on Cable TV, or Ebay, as the VHS is long out of print, and the film hasn't be released on DVD, which is too bad considering all the junk that is out there.
VideoMonkey
I saw this flick years ago when TV was still cool and they had late night movies on most stations instead of ridiculous talk-shows and infomercials. It was probably only on because it was Canadian, and stations were required to have so much Canadian content and back them Canadian movies were for the most part bad or non-existent. It had all the cursing blanked out but still I was old enough to infer what was said. But I was most impressed with this back then! It took me a lot of years to track down a copy of this on video, and now that I did and watched it again, I still thought that it was awesomely cool (even though I knew what the ending would be). The story is pretty simple. A group of hunters bored because there is nothing left to shoot, meet another group of hunters in the same situation. Then just like that, a firefight erupts leaving one of their group injured and one of the other group dead. From then on, it builds up from 'should they report it' to 'they be after us for revenge' and every level in between. So the hunters get all the guns and gear and able-bodied men they can and go back to the spot the following Saturday in anticipation of the other hunters being there to ambush them. Will they be there or is it just paranoia? I'm not saying but the ending is a surprise.
GPHemming
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
emm
Either I was watching an outdoors program on ESPN or just wasting 90 minutes of my time enjoying this little boring drama about a group of big-game hunters discussing and devising tactics to counter-attack a bunch of strangers who spoiled their weekend in the woods. The best part about it was the ending that compares to a classic Civil War drama with plenty of desperate lives at stake, but don't you agree that SHOOT delivers a plot that sounds too fishy to believe? You bet! If you can find it, give it to a loved one who's spent years of military training. Another sick casualty in the fight for survival in the video stores!
AD
