Play Dirty (1968)

I'm really a fan of Michael Caine, I just think he's one of those actors that really is a true professional. Throw any role at him and he'll turn it into something unique. However I was a little disappointed with 1968's Play Dirty.

Continuing in the vein of "getting the criminals to do the dirty work" movies like The Dirty Dozen and the recently reviewed The Secret Invasion, Play Dirty takes a bit of a unique twist on it. This time, a British Colonel sends this band of misfits off to blow up a German fuel depot far behind enemy lines in North Africa, in an attempt to validate his techniques of employing the local talent. However the higher-ups have other plans, instead using this group as a 'scout' to flush out the enemy resistance in front of the real expedition. But really, a fuel depot in North Africa? We could have been a little more original. (Dirty Dozen meets Tobruk? Yeah.)

Led by the cutthroat Capt. Leech (Nigel Davenport), they employ the talents of oil company man turned fuel depot expert Capt. Douglas (Michael Caine) as the expert. Of course, Leech is none too happy about having some clerk along for the ride, and the only way to get him to play along is to pay him extra to ensure that Douglas gets back intact. The rest of the motley crew? Really they are mostly inconsequential, just along for the ride. Don't even get me started on the two, um, affectionate arabs. Either they are really close brothers, or there's something else going on there. Know what I mean, say no more, etc.

Well, they set out on their mission. And what gets billed as a "tense action packed" movie turns out to be anything but. There's lots of shots of them driving through the desert, fighting the elements and their vehicles. They do manage to get past a band of local Nazi sympathizers, and the first real battle of the film takes place between a German contingent and the "real" British force which is following closely behind, as this band watches. "Survival" is the name of the game here, as Leech so bluntly puts it.

Then there's more desert driving, sandstorms, flat tires. Yeah I suppose that's all well and good. Man vs. the elements and all that, but it makes for some rather dull sequences. Then they arrive at the fuel depot. Or at least what's left of it. Its been abandoned, and Douglas and Leech convince their band to go after the real depot some distance away. You can probably guess the rest.

I will say this, Play Dirty is chock full of that 1960's nihilism, cynicism, and general attitude which seemed to be prevalent in a lot of pictures of the day. The final ending especially will remind you of films like Hell in the Pacific or Fail Safe.

Back to Caine. Really his portrayal of the company man didn't click with me. I found it to be rather wooden and drab. Stoic? Sure, I suppose to give some sort of contrast to the "anything goes" nature of the Leech character, as Douglas seems to want to do things "by the book" most of the time. He does eventually come around, but not really in a convincing way, at least for me.

On another note, I actually found the soundtrack for Play Dirty to be a pleasant change from a lot of its contemporaries. There is a lot of the usual snare drum pomp-and-circumstance bits, but the overall package really makes the film bearable to watch. Throw in several moments where the characters have the various local radio stations (German, Italian, American) tuned in as they're driving around in the sand, and it really helps.

Play Dirty (1968) on Spout.com

Originally posted on:War Movie Reviews and News

Battle Cry (1955)

"The men who fought. The women who waited. And the stolen moments they shared." Ick.

For those of you wanting the short-and-sweet version of this review, here it is: 1955's Battle Cry is short on Battle, and long on Cry. In it, we follow a squad of Marines from enlistment in 1942 all the way through Saipan in 1944. Or do we? I gotta say, I feel gipped!!

Instead of following the Marines in action, we mostly are treated to a few shorter stories involving the mens' involvement with various persons of the female persuasion. It looked like it could be an interesting picture, but the whole "soap opera" nature of the film left me throwing up my hands and going "WTF?! Where's the war, man!"

From the Private who gets involved with the USO director, who just happens to be married, but winds up going back and marrying his high school sweetheart, to the Corporal who falls for the girl he runs into on the ferry night after night, only to find out that she's actually kinda-sorta-seeing one of the other guys in the squad....

...and then they get shipped off to someplace like, I dunno, Guadalcanal, only to be a part of the mop-up efforts, for about five minutes of screen time, and then its back to the romantic melodrama. Rinse and repeat.

Had I known what to expect going in, I probably wouldn't be as let down as I was. I mean, after two and a half hours of the same, "I love you! boohoohoo" stuff it starts to get, well, a little comical. Throw in a good heaping-helping of mid-fifties cheesiness and you've really got the makings of a cinematical enigma.

The squad's only real action comes at Saipan, where the commander whines to his CO to get his men a slot on the beachhead, instead of (yet again) in the reserve forces. How very gung ho.

I'm not going to run it all down for you, if you're interested in romantic dramas, this might suit you more than anything. Yeah, alright, I'll concede that we do get a good look into the oft-forgotten relationships that are a part of any war. But I just couldn't take it.

Curiously, Battle Cry, at least to me, seemed to be very racy and risque for its time. A couple of scenes inparticular should strike you as out-of-place for the mainstream cinema of the day. I will also concede that none of the romantic interests were in any way difficult to watch, if you get my drift, which surely made the 2.5 hours a little more bearable.

The death knell for my opinion of the picture was when Pvt. Danny gets hit on Saipan, and we witness his wifey back home shooting up out of bed screaming in some sort of psychic moment. Eyes were a-rolling, let me tell you.

Cut the film down a bit, put in a little more Battle and a lot less Cry, and you've got a good picture. Battle Cry just wasn't my cup-a-joe.

Battle Cry (1955) on Spout.com

Originally posted on:War Movie Reviews and News

In The Valley of Elah (2007)

As we learn in the film, in the Biblical parlance, the Valley of Elah is where the infamous battle between David and Goliath took place. I'm not exactly sure what the relevance of that to the movie, In The Valley of Elah is, except maybe in reference to the main character, Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones)

But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here. Elah follows Deerfield as he searches for his son, Mike Deerfield, who has gone AWOL after returning from a tour in Iraq. The search turns into a murder mystery, as we discover his horribly mutilated remains in a field. Helping with the investigation is the mediocre rural detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron.)

War Movie? No. Classify this under murder/detective mystery more than anything. However, I think that the folks who made the movie intended for this to be some kind of statement. That little effort, in my not so humble opinion, falls flat on its face. Seen purely in that light, it goes from one extreme to the other and then back again. From 'honor our troops!' to 'the US is wrong' to 'war is hell' to 'our soldiers are animals' and then falls somewhere in the "unfavorable" light as we end the film with Deerfield hanging the flag his son sent him upside down as a signal of distress. Whether that's supposed to be Deerfield's or all of us collectively I'm not sure.

It's also unclear to me how the now deceased Deerfield's unfortunate events ultimately play into his death, and the plot in general. Not to spoil it, but he accidentally does something that he can't live with, and it just doesn't line up with the manner or circumstances of his death. Is the moral of the story "shit happens?" I really don't know.

Anyway. If you take all of that aside, go ahead, toss it out the window... You really end up with a good movie. A good detective story anyway. And as far as detective stories go it is pretty predictable.

The final thing which makes Elah what it is is Tommy Lee Jones' performance, and how we witness his character go from straight-laced, (and still "living the life" so-to-speak) into a dark world of chaos. He starts off parking his polished shoes by his neatly tucked-and-folded bed, to a sloppy, sleeping til noon mess as he unravels the mystery of what happened to his son. Really, that's whats at the core of the story. I'll throw in a big nod to Susan Sarandon playing the would-be-stoic army wife and mother. Her brief yet powerful performance is equally moving as Jones'. But, if Theron's goal was to play a not-so-bright but dedicated cop with no personality, then I think she nailed it dead on.

So, take all the proposed rhetoric about Iraq out of In The Valley of Elah, and its a really solid piece. But to put it all in there is just confusing and at best a plot device that we just didn't need. The entire stream of 'decoded' cell phone videos just serve to muddle the picture, providing few clues really except to finally show that Mike's buddies were a bunch of sadistic animals. I just don't get the motive there.

In The Valley of Elah (2007) on Spout.com

Originally posted on:War Movie Reviews and News