This review has some plot spoilers, but not too much.
With names like Robert Carradine, Meg Foster, and John Saxon heading the cast of `The Killers Within,' I was expecting something really exciting when I sat down to watch it. I knew it was a low budget movie, but with people like this, I thought that maybe they were all lured into it by a slam-bang script or story. That isn't the case. Really, the script is so unspectacular that I can't figure out exactly why these talented people did this movie.
That is not to say that I think the movie is bad, because it isn't. I marginally like it, to be honest. There just isn't a whole lot to it. Carradine plays Ben Wallace, a man whose newspaper writer brother goes missing. His body is later found in the remains of his car, and a lot of drugs are found in his body. Carradine knows his brother had given up drugs long ago, so he sets out to find the real killers. With the help of a colleague of his brother at the newspaper, Carradine learns his brother was writing a story that he was excited about. It may have had to do with a close friend of his brother, Congressman Clayton (Mike Farrell), or it may have had something to do with the newspaper editor, played by Foster. Yep, they are in it all together, and the evil deed they feared being exposed is that they are harboring a Nazi war criminal believed dead, and they are funneling money to various hate groups and political mischief makers. Carradine puts the pieces together with the help of police detective John Saxon and a German (Norbert Weisser) who is looking for the Nazi.
The movie is neither good nor bad. Everything makes sense leading up to the conclusion, but the end itself isn't very exciting or satisfying (Carradine, as the main character with a debt to pay those that killed his brother, should have played a more crucial role in the final confrontation with Farrell and Foster). Paul Leder's final film is a decent time killer, but not something to go far out of your way to hunt down unless you are a big Robert Carradine fan. Zantara's score: 6 out of 10.
With names like Robert Carradine, Meg Foster, and John Saxon heading the cast of `The Killers Within,' I was expecting something really exciting when I sat down to watch it. I knew it was a low budget movie, but with people like this, I thought that maybe they were all lured into it by a slam-bang script or story. That isn't the case. Really, the script is so unspectacular that I can't figure out exactly why these talented people did this movie.
That is not to say that I think the movie is bad, because it isn't. I marginally like it, to be honest. There just isn't a whole lot to it. Carradine plays Ben Wallace, a man whose newspaper writer brother goes missing. His body is later found in the remains of his car, and a lot of drugs are found in his body. Carradine knows his brother had given up drugs long ago, so he sets out to find the real killers. With the help of a colleague of his brother at the newspaper, Carradine learns his brother was writing a story that he was excited about. It may have had to do with a close friend of his brother, Congressman Clayton (Mike Farrell), or it may have had something to do with the newspaper editor, played by Foster. Yep, they are in it all together, and the evil deed they feared being exposed is that they are harboring a Nazi war criminal believed dead, and they are funneling money to various hate groups and political mischief makers. Carradine puts the pieces together with the help of police detective John Saxon and a German (Norbert Weisser) who is looking for the Nazi.
The movie is neither good nor bad. Everything makes sense leading up to the conclusion, but the end itself isn't very exciting or satisfying (Carradine, as the main character with a debt to pay those that killed his brother, should have played a more crucial role in the final confrontation with Farrell and Foster). Paul Leder's final film is a decent time killer, but not something to go far out of your way to hunt down unless you are a big Robert Carradine fan. Zantara's score: 6 out of 10.
