Warren Stantin (Sidney Poitier) is an FBI agent in San Francisco. A hostage situation goes wrong. The killer escapes with a bag of diamonds. Stantin follows a similar killing to the wilderness of Washington. He suspects the killer had surreptitiously joined a fishing expedition guided by Sarah Rennell (Kirstie Alley). Her partner Jonathan Knox (Tom Berenger) sets out to follow and is forced to take the city slicker G-man with him.

It's Sidney Poitier's first movie in over a decade. He hasn't lost a step. He is surprisingly funny at times. The fish out of water aspect is solid and fun. His most memorable scene is probably scaring away the bear. The killer is kept a mystery in a good way. That half is a fun little mystery. I would have preferred ending the movie in the woods. There are a couple of good ideas in the city. The car chase is nothing special but solidly 80's action. There is a good switch-a-roo that ties in with an earlier moment. I don't know about keeping Kristie Alley a hostage all through that part of the movie. It makes much more sense for the killer to kill any possible witnesses once he escaped to the city. Kristie becomes a hinderance during the escape. That's all the more reason to end the movie in the woods. The killer is incentivized to keep his hostage alive as long as he needs a guide. Overall, this is a solid 80's action thriller.

After an eleven year absence from the screen, Sidney Poitier chose to return in an action/adventure film where he plays an FBI agent in search of a killer.

He's got good reason to want this guy bad. His quarry is ruthless and kills without mercy. Poitier loses a hostage and the ransom he's asked for. But some good detective work has traced the man to a remote part of the Pacific Northwest.

Where the perpetrator has killed again and joined a party of dry fly fishermen being guided by Kirstie Alley into the rugged mountains. No place for a city kid like Poitier, says mountaineer/hermit Tom Berenger who has the prerequisite skills to get the job done. These two are forced into an alliance of inconvenience.

The best thing I liked about Shoot To Kill is the guessing game we play for the identity of the perpetrator. Any one of the five men in Kirstie Alley's party could have been the killer. Look at the cast list and you'll recognize a few names who've played some pretty loathsome villains in the past. The identity is revealed suddenly and quite shockingly.

What I didn't like with Shoot To Kill is the fact that the final confrontation with the perpetrator is in big city Vancouver where he's escaped with Alley. He needed her in the woods, not any longer, she should have wound up dead. And Berenger and Poitier should have confronted him in the woods.

That script decision made the climax a rather ordinary one that you see in a whole lot of police chase films. Still all the players do fine here, my favorite being Kirstie Alley as the woods smart guide.

After a diamond dealer's home is attacked by a man who wants the precious stones, the robber takes the dealer's wife hostage in a violent confrontation with the police and FBI in San Francisco. The agent in charge, Warren Stantin, gives the diamonds to the, almost invisible, man, who flees by boat taking the loot with him. The only way to beat the FBI and the people that are following him is to head north to Canada.

Thus begins this action thriller that uses the Canadian Rockies as the backdrop for setting this story about a determined FBI enforcer following a deadly assassin who has left a trail of killings as he goes into the mountains. Stantin is told the only way to find his man is by engaging Jonathan Knox, a man who knows the area, to guide him. Knox, who is reluctant, at first, realizes the man might be part of a group his girlfriend, Sarah, is taking on an extended trek of the mountains.

Stantin and Knox begin to fight as they have different ideas about what to do, but they end up bonding, as they understand what is at stake. This pair endures some of the worst weather conditions in their quest for the assassin, and in finding the diamonds that the outlaw wants to sell to an unscrupulous man in Vancouver.

Roger Spottiswoode directed this action filled movie with sure hand. The screen play is by Harv Zimmel and Daniel Petrie, two men who know how to involve the viewer. Michael Chapman photographed the great outdoors with an eye on the dangerous aspects of the chase.

Sidney Poitier is seen as Warren Stantin, an FBI agent that is restless in his pursue of the killer. This was Mr. Poitier's return to the movies after quite a number of years not being in front of a camera. Tom Berenger plays Knox, an outdoors man who is more at home in the mountains than among people.

The surprise of the story is that we don't have a clue up to the middle of the film about who the real killer is. By positioning him among the group that Sarah is taking on a mountain expedition, adds a great deal of suspense to the story. The ending leaves a lot to be desired, but that's only a minor complaint about this action packed film.