Sam Elliott is one of those actors that is always great in everything he does and has garnered just as much credit for his acting as his mustache. Throughout his career he has taken on a wide variety of roles and looks to keep that going with his latest film The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot co-starring Aidan Turner, Ron Livingston, Caitlin FitzGerald, Larry Miller, and Ellar Coltrane. Could this latest bizarre themed idea be yet another great film or will it fail to complete the hunt?

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The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot follows the epic adventures of an American legend that no one has ever heard of.  Since WWII, Calvin Barr has lived with the secret that he was responsible for the assassination of Adolf Hitler. Now, decades later, the US government has called on him again for a new top-secret mission. Bigfoot has been living deep in the Canadian wilderness and is carrying a deadly plague that is now threatening to spread to the general population. Relying on the same skills that he honed during the war, Calvin must set out to save the free world yet again. Ever since I heard about this one I was intrigued in the title alone, but with Elliott involved it made it all the more interesting.

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This is one of those films that walks on the thin line of great and missed opportunity. In one aspect there is a great story of a man and his secret history that he still struggles with keeping. The knowledge of knowing his involvement in Hitler’s death could change everything for him but also is part of his legacy of mystique. I loved the majority of the film as it bounced between the present day and his life know and unraveling the assassination. Where it takes the weird turn is just like in the title with the Bigfoot direction. It’s not because of this, because it is a genius idea. It’s more in the overall execution of it all and the limited time we really get to spend on this adventure.

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I really wished they had extended this second half of the story longer so we could fully get invested in the hunt and the game of cat and mouse with his prey. We get so much initially to tell us who he is and what he did that it felt rushed here. There is this great shot of Elliott standing in front of this massive fire before the hunt and then takes a strange cut right in the middle of it. I thought it had skipped a chapter or something, but it was just the cut. This lost any thrill of the actual hunt as we are now already in the action of it all and despite a few harrowing moments it kind of ends as fast as it starts.

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I am not a big fan of the look they went for with the creature, but do applaud the final confrontation and how brutal it gets without being graphically gory. The end of the film kind of switches gears again and takes you back to the reality of Elliott’s character and his life reminding you of the greatness that came in the majority of the film. I did fully enjoy it as a whole and loved the idea, but wanted more. This is one you just need to check out for yourself when it hits Blu-ray and DVD on April 2nd from RLJE Films.