A British multinational seeks to overthrow a vicious dictator in central Africa. It hires a band of mercenaries and sends them in to save the virtuous but imprisoned opposition leader who is due for execution.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078492/
Trailer
(DO NOT WATCH! It literally gives away the entire ending!)
The Wah-Geeze. Aside from some cornball social commentary and gay stereotypes that have aged particularly badly it holds up well and beats hell outta any recent action films. And while heavy handed and clumsy, I halfway applaud the fact that they even attempted any social commentary considering the sad state of modern action movies . . . Likewise, the fact that one of the sympathetic, likeable main characters is gay is actually pretty progressive, even if he is a blatant caricature (Rome weren't built in a day). One gets the feeling that all chiding aside that these guys are all brothers (though Witty is more den mother than anything) - a point particularly well made as Hardy Kruger shouts to Witty helplessly, Witty going down in a rain of machetes for his boys.
ReplyDeleteBut I guess what really matters is the action . . . which is pretty brutal and involving. Seeing non-CG bombs drop and bounce towards a napalmic explosion is pretty unreal - because it's so uncannily real. Aerial triple lindys are the norm as the elite Simbas go careening skyward from grenade blasts - bordering on Riefenstahlic acrobatics. And the finale really gets blood pumping. Well cut, rhythmic and chaotic at once, and ultimately devastating.
Dirty Dozen-ish in the futility of it all (but even there they killed a bunch of high ranking Nazis and a few GIs survived to see freedom). These mercs get irrevocably screwed. After all the speech making and power brokering and bloodshed they're left with half a million to split 13 ways and the satisfaction of having wasted a rich scumbag. Bummer for the Wah-Geez.
Witteeeeeeeeeeey!!!
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