This British Merchant-Ivory look-alike was adapted from a novel by Isabel Colgate. In the summer before World War I, British nobleman
James Mason invites an assorted group of acquaintances for a weekend shooting party on his huge estate. Among the participants are longtime rivals
Edward Fox and Rupert Frazer, Fox's occasionally unfaithful wife
Cheryl Campbell, and staunch anti-hunting advocate
John Gielgud. The film unfolds in a carefully calculated but seemingly spontaneous fashion, in the manner of its 1938 ancestor Rules of the Game. Also like the earlier film, The Shooting Party casts a jaundiced eye towards class consciousness--and ends with a sudden, senseless but not altogether unexpected tragedy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide