Sitting Target

Actioner Seems Better Now Than When Released
Warner Archive has released MGM's 1972 British actioner, "Sitting Target" starring Oliver Reed and Ian McShane in a kind of buddy picture that suffers from a lack of morals as a lot of British films were prone to from the mid-sixties. In Britain, unlike "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," the buddies eventually turn on one another as a twist. Not very sporting. And the violence ala Peter Collinson (this was after 1967's "The Penthouse" and 1969's "The Italian Job" and 1971's "Fright") is brought to the screen as directed by Douglas Hickox who had previously directed the film version of Joe Orton's comedy "Entertaining Mr. Sloane" and would later direct "Theatre of Blood" and "Zulu Dawn." And as in Britain in 1971 when Sam Peckinpah delivered "Straw Dogs" we learned a lesson through the violence. Here we only know that "vengeance is the Lord's" ultimately, and we knew that from the beginning, but wanted to sit through it. Jill St. John, the leading lady who never really became...

Brutal British Thriller; Finally released!
I caught "Sitting Target" a few times on cable TV many years ago and have been looking for a DVD release ever since, so it is with great delight that I see Warners is producing this film as one of their made-on-demand discs. Very much a product of its time, "Sitting Target" is a brutal British thriller in which an imprisoned criminal (Oliver Reed) breaks out to kill his unfaithful wife (Jill St. John). Nasty in a very good way. I will be ordering this today!

Brutal, stylish, uncompromising.
This is an under appreciated gem. The critics, wrong-headed as always, lambasted it when it was first released. For some reason, the popular consensus names the vastly overrated "Get Carter" as the crime classic from that era. But for my money "Sitting Target" blows it away. Oliver Reed is seriously bad ass in this,like a man possessed. His brooding presence hangs over every frame. His character is, on the surface, a malevolent brute, yet he managed to bring some depth to the part; I felt the sadness, the tragedy, when it all ended. His character did, after all, love his wife. Bravo.

Click to Editorial Reviews