This film is odd, but entertaining in an amusing way as there is quite a bit of carnage and then the film will shift tones and almost be comedic in nature. Kids being shot and then fat guy cannot quite climb. Guy getting his head blown off at close range, fat guy accidentally punches his buddy out amidst a fight! That is the type of stuff this film was delivering as it seemed to want to be a super violent film at times and at others a bit more lighthearted...

The story, a group of mercenaries breaks into a house and grabs a older man while gunning down the family. I am assuming the guy who said 'no' is the one who later shows up at a house with plans to publish a book to expose the evil deviants...all through the movie I kept thinking, "wouldn't taking your story to a newspaper or a news program be more successful?" Anyhow, they go in and get him, but one of the guys doesn't care too much for this new job and soon he and the guy's who has written the book and is captured sister flees trying to evade the deadly organization of people in suits who like to scream when kicking! We get publishers fighting, we get dips in the pool (why is a fight always over when people fall into a pool in a movie, is getting out never an option?) and we get recruitment, joint smoking we get it all! We also get a fairly weak final stand off...

The cast is largely not one I recognize, the lead guy kind of looks like Jan Michael Vincent, but isn't and the reporter looks like Loni Anderson, but isn't, but no one I have seen a lot of.

So, not a really good film and it does go all over the place, but still, it was a fun watch. Actually had some good kills in it, but at the same time the strange shifts were so out of place at times. The lead guy's girlfriend is killed and the next thing you know he is having a montage out of nowhere with the sister! The film will keep you on your toes with all the tone shifts!

"The Company" is an elite team of top-secret mercenaries who go around the world dispensing death in a ruthless manner. When nice guy Tom Cattrall (Thayer),who is an unassuming TV repairman and resembles author Stephen King, gets ensnared in this dark organization because they want his wiretapping skills, he soon gets on their bad side. A former member of The Company, Danny Burke, wrote a tell-all book about their dirty dealings and now The Company is after him big time, and Tom and Danny's sister Jan (Hoskins) have fallen in love. As if that wasn't enough, Tom and Jan enlist a book publisher and a cadre of hobos they hired to rent out an abandoned warehouse and SELF-PUBLISH Danny's book. Can they finish the book and get it out to stores in time? Or will they all fall prey to The Company's nefarious tactics? In the first five minutes of The Retrievers we get some classic staples some movies don't have in their whole running time: the classic neck snap, guy falling out of a guard tower, fan favorite decapitation (this time with garden shears) and someone yelling "noooooo!" -- that's what's good about The Retrievers - it's fan-pleasing fun from start to finish.

Even though the film was released in 1982, it has a pleasant 70's feel to it and the movie does resemble Death Machines in many ways. It has some funky tunes on the soundtrack and shag carpet graces many floors in the film, among a lot of other 70's decor and clothing. I loved that alone, but it's also violent, fast paced and has plenty of funny dialogue. What's not to love? It is worth noting that there is a last-minute character we all love, in the vein of Bear, Machine Gun Joe, The Dead Man and The Cowboy (Maximum Force (1992),Provoked (1989),Chains (1989) and Maximum Breakout (1991) respectively) - this time it's a morbidly obese man named Big Mac (can they do that?) he eats apples and throws them at bad guys. Also tuba music plays when he walks. Fat guy humor for ya. Go Big Mac! There are some cool movie-making techniques used in The Retrievers: hand-held camera for some fight scenes and some tastefully-done sped up action. There is a very cool montage during the bookmaking sequence. It ends on a freeze frame as all action movies should. Also in the credits there are some interesting things: Katey Sagal of Futurama fame sings the stirring end credits song and future Road House (1989) director Rowdy Herrington also gets a credit. And in case you wanted to know who played the "Wetbacks", that's there too. "WETBACKS" gets a credit!!!! We didn't make that up, it's an actual credit. You won't see that again in these PC times.

This seems like it would have played at drive-ins at the time. It was also released on Vestron in the 80's. Sure, it falls prey to some low-budget bugaboos such as seeing the boom mike/mike shadows, underlit scenes and some terrible acting/non-acting (watch out for the book publisher saying "your work ethic is terrible)...but The Retrievers is cool, entertaining fun that 80's action fans should love.

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This is definitely one of the few movies still in my mind. I watched this when I was still in second year high (around 1984 here). Nevermind if this movie is not a classic, but this is surely a hard action and one of the best movies released that year in our city. Action flicks were then making money here.