Play Dirty (1969)

Play Dirty

Directed by: Andre De Toth

Starring: Michael Cane, Nigel Davenport, Nigel Green, & Harry Andrews

Released: 1969

Country of Origin: UK

Runtime: 118 min.

It's always struck me as slightly odd when very pro-military/pro-war people are into films with very strong anti-war sentiments. I'm not sure if they just like watching things blow up, if they can ignore the clashing ideals, or they're just too dim-witted to understand the underlying message the film carries. When my sister joined the Marines, right before she shipped off to boot camp, they all got together to watch Full Metal Jacket. I view that movie as a pinnacle in anti-war filmmaking, one that is near impossible to watch and not understand it's message. Yes, that film is about a completely different war than the supposed one we are currently involved with, but it still strikes me as kinda of ironic. I asked her why in the world they would choose to watch Full Metal Jacket, when it's clearly against the things she may have to do? I didn't really get a clear answer, but at least she understood that it was indeed anti-war. The 1969 film, Play Dirty is definitely an anti-war picture. It's sarcastic, cynical, and far more nihilistic than what most war film fans are used to. It's also pretty darn good.

The film stars the always awesome, Michael Cane as Capt. Douglas, a British solider in North Africa, who is put in charge of a misfit band of psychopaths on a mission to blow up German fuel supplies 400 miles behind enemy lines. He may be technically in charge, but it's clear this unit only takes its orders from a very disagreeable captain, Cyril Leech. Leech is brash, insubordinate, and nihilistic to the core. He doesn't care who he kills, by his own hands or by his inaction, as long as he survives and gets paid. The rest of the group is made up of ex-convicts including a narcotics smuggler, a terrorist, a rapist, and two homosexual Senussi guides. Unknown to the soldiers, the military has no intentions of them actually succeeding in their mission. They're being used as decoys, with a second, better equipped group heading for the same target. Eventually, the deception is found out when they witness the second unit's destruction at the hands of the Germans, but Capt. Douglas is hell-bent on succeeding and finishing their mission.

Does this all sound a little familiar? The plot bears striking similarities to the well known film The Dirty Dozen, which was released only a year before this one. I haven't had the chance to see The Dirty Dozen, so I'll be pretty useless in terms of comparison. I'm actually glad I saw this film first. The Dirty Dozen is such a highly revered film, and I'm sure I would have been quick to point out the copy-cat nature of this plot. I'd be placing too much emphasis on why one was better than the other, as opposed to judging Play Dirty by its own merits. Instead, I'm getting a clear view of this surprising little gem. This is far from a perfect film, but it's a unique and interesting take on the typical war film. At times it drags a little and would have benefited from a bit more conservative editing. Those looking for war action are not going to find much here, instead the focus is on the group and how morally ambiguous it's member have become. Countless times Capt. Douglas is shocked by how disrespectful the unit is to him, the dead, and just about everything. These are people who rape, steal from corpses, and are only loyal to each other and Capt. Leech. The greatest moments in the film use little or no dialogue, often in moments of extreme tension, which make these events exponentially more captivating and exciting. The best example is a scene in which the unit is trying to hoist their vehicles up an impossibly steep cliff. The lack of speech and sound adds tremendous amount of tension and keeps your eyes completely glued to the action. The tone of Play Dirty is bleak and extremely cynical, which for some will be an extreme turn-off. Much of the payoff in the film is in it's explosive ending, the details of which you will have see for yourself. But I will say this: The last seconds of the film pounds the last sarcastic nail in the movie's coffin and is pretty much a giant middle finger to the audience, the nature of war, and maybe even war films in general.

FINAL VERDICT: I enjoyed this movie for it's oddities more than it's cinematic merits. Michael Cane and Nigel Davenport are great, but it's slow pace and lack of action will prove to be a tough sell for many people. I have a tendency to forgive a flawed film for an exceptional ending. If the ending leaves me either saying WTF, or reeling in it's brilliance, it makes the moments that came before that maybe didn't thrill me as much, far less important. The ending for this isn't necessarily a new concept, but at the time it was far less common and accepted. I appreciate that. It's not a film I'm going to rush out and watch again, but I can definitely see myself returning to it again someday.

Centurion (2010)

Centurion

Directed by: Neil Marshall

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Olga Kurylenko, Dominic West

Released: 2010

Country of Origin: UK

Runtime: 97 min.

It's rare when an epic, historical film impresses me. I've noticed a couple things that are common in these films which prevent them from shifting past marginally good into the realm of great film-making. The first is dialogue: For some reason every actor feels the need to deliver each line like it's the most important thing they have ever said. It's an unnecessary form of over-the-top speech that feels unnatural and often crosses over to just sounding cheesy. The best thing you can do with dialogue is to craft it so the audience isn't aware that someone actually sat down and wrote the lines. I don't have a problem with over-the-top acting, in fact some of my favorite performances are extremely over-the-top (for example: Jack Nicholson in The Shinning). But it only works when the performance is coupled with an equally over-the-top character. The other major problem is using action and violence to make up for a lack-luster story or script. I understand that most people going to these films are mainly there to see a film full of action, it's something that comes with the territory. Most audiences are able to forgive missteps in a movie as long as the action is exciting and limbs are flying. I love seeing copious amounts of blood, gore, and severed heads as much, if not more, than the average person, but it doesn't make substituting violence for story any better. I would really love to see a historical epic that swerves away from these cinematic pot-holes, and based on the strength of Neil Marshall's previous efforts, I had a small hope that Centurion might be that film.

Centurion stars Michael Fassbender as Quintus Dias, a Roman centurion who is having what might be the worst week of his life. After a vicious band of Pict warriors slaughters his entire company, he is captured, tortured, and dunked in piss-water. Somehow, he is able to escape and make a run for it across a whole lot of snowy mountains. When a legion of Roman soldiers, lead by Dominic West, finally crosses paths with him, he is forced to join up and head right back to the place he escaped from. On the way to kill those nasty Picts, the legion's guide Etain, a mute Pict warrior played by former Bond-girl Olga Kurylenko, betrays the group and leads them straight into a trap. After most of the legion is killed off by giant fireballs, a small band of survivors, lead by Quintus Dias, heads to the Pict camp to save their captured general. During the rescue attempt, one of the soldiers decides to make things worse by killing the Pict general's son. This really pisses off the Picts, who leave in pursuit and take a blood oath to kill every last one of the Roman soldiers. The rest of film includes a lot of running, hiding, running some more, hiding, eating half digested mush from an animal's stomach, more running, and a whole lot of dying.

After watching him in Inglorious Bastards and Hunger, I was starting to think Michael Fassbender could do no wrong. He is one of more impressive actors working today, and I fully expect many great performances from him in the future. But his role in Centurion is definitely not one of them. I'm not saying he's horrible, he does the best he can with what he's been given, but what he's given isn't much. The script is awful, and feels like if you copied and pasted lines from just about any epic war film, you could come up with the same script used in Centurion. There is absolutely nothing in this movie you haven't seen before. It's formulaic film-making through and through, which is an awful disappointment from Neil Marshall. Marshall's previous films, The Decent and Doomsday, took generic genre conventions and created films that were uncharacteristically well done. The Decent was one of the best horror films of the last decade, and one of the few that actually scared me. Marshall's characters were uncommonly real, and more authentic than what we are used to in horror films. He spent a large amount of time with character development, so that once the horror started, you actually cared about what was happening to the people in the film. Doomsday was arguably far less of a film than The Decent, but the wild glee and craziness of the film made it a complete joy to watch. It was definitely not made on auto-pilot, which is exactly how Centurion feels. The joy and excitement of film-making that flowed out of Doomsday is nowhere to be found, like Marshall just didn't care about what he was doing. Which makes sense, Doomsday was a box-office failure, it's only logical that he may not have had the freedom and budget to do what he wanted to this time around. But that sense of a lack of passion for this project shows through the screen, making it near impossible to enjoy beyond seeing a couple heads fly through the air.

FINAL VERDICT: This is something I will probably never watch again. It's mediocre at best, but honestly, you could do a lot worse. I stopped caring about halfway through, which at a little over 90 minutes, is pretty bad. Trying to tell a compelling, epic story in that little time is a hard thing to accomplish. Not impossible, but with most of the screen time devoted to running away and hiding, it leaves little room for things like character development and plot. Neil Marshall has a background in horror films, and his use and style of gore represents that. The gore may be the only thing that sets this apart from any other film in the genre, but that splatter-fest sensibility is dulled by awful CGI blood. I miss the old days of gore. When blood was corn-syrup and red food-coloring, and staging a messy kill took ingenuity and skill. Unfortunately, it's now a lot cheaper to just add the blood splatters in post. Lame.

Valhalla Rising (2009)

Valhalla Rising

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn

Starring: Mads Mikkelsen

Released: 2009

Country of Origin: UK

Runtime: 93 min.

Never trust movie trailers. I find it preferable to enter into a film with as few expectations as possible. I understand this can be a hard things to do, trailers are often the only way people are aware that movies actually exist. It's also something we expect to see before we decided a certain film is the right choice. However, these previews can greatly distort the artistic nature of a film in an effort to appeal to the widest possible audience. I used to work at Hastings, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen people rent a film only to return it the next day, complaining that it wasn't at all what they expected and they hated it. These unrealistic expectations often prevent people from objectively viewing a movie for what it is, as opposed to what they think they should see. A repeat viewing of the film often solves that issue, but most will never give it a second try. After watching Valhalla Rising, I can see that it's going to suffer tremendously from it's inaccurate marketing campaign. From the box art, synopsis, and trailers, people are going to go into this expecting a viking action film. The film has vikings in it, and there is some action present, but this is very far removed from what the words "viking action film" imply.

Directed by one of my new favorite directors, Nicolas Winding Refn, Valhalla Rising stars Mads Mikkelsen as One-Eye, a Nordic warrior who possess superhuman strength and a knack for killing just about anything. For years he has been held prisoner and forced to fight to the death for the pleasure of his Viking captors. Seeming to be plagued with prophetic dreams, One-Eye is able to escape and kill his masters, and embarks into the unknown followed by a young boy who attended to him in his prison. The two eventually join up with a band of Christian crusaders in search of the Holy Land, promising One-Eye redemption from his pagan ways in return for his aide. After a misguided and very foggy boat ride, the group arrives in what appears to be North America. Upon learning that they're definitely not in Jerusalem, they proceed to get attacked by unseen natives, trip out on hallucinogenics, build pointless piles of rocks, and claim the land in the name of the Lord. Explaining the plot really does nothing to prepare you for what you will see and experience in this film. Telling someone that this is a viking film is technically correct, but it's also one hell of a trippy, artsy ride into the depths of religious fervor and nihilistic brutality.

Refn directed one of my favorite films of last year, Bronson. Which took elements of A Clockwork Orange and spiced them with slight nods at David Lynch to tell the insane story of Britain's most violent prisoner. Upon seeing trailers for Valhalla Rising, I expected an epic, violent viking tale in the style of Refn's previous film. Instead I got an atmospheric mind-trip that owes more to El Topo, Aguirre, The Wrath Of God, and the films of Kenneth Anger than is does The 13th Warrior, or just about any viking film I've ever seen. It's deliberately paced (which is basically how we film snobs say: "It's slow as hell!"), with very little dialogue to drive the plot, but I found the whole experience memorizing and completely captivating. Mads Mikkelsen never utters single word in the film's 93 minute runtime, yet his presence and power leaves the strongest impression after the credits roll. It's the mark of a true actor, when a performance is this memorable despite never saying anything. The score is also perfectly matched to Valhalla Rising's apocalyptic overtones of dread, menace, and death. Originally, Refn wanted Mogwai to provide the film's score, but schedule conflicts made it impossible. I love Mogwai, and while I'm sure they would have done an excellent job, I'm rather glad the film has the score it does. The music is minimalistic, dark, and relies heavily on electronics, often reminding me of a more cinematic version of dark-ambient mastermind, Lustmord.

FINAL VERDICT: This film is going to split most audiences right down the middle. People who just want a popcorn film are going to absolutely hate it, while I expect people with a taste for the more abstract and experimental realms of cinema will find a lot to rejoice about with Valhalla Rising. Personally, I loved it and it reminded me of just why I'm so obsessed with film. I had an misguided perception of what this film was going to be like, but I'm far happier with what I got. If you see this on the rental shelves and think you've just found sweetass, violent film about vikings, stop right there and leave this one alone. If you're aware of what you're getting into, your experience with it might be a little better. However, I still feel this film will only to appeal to a select crowd of people. People like me. And let's be honest, I'm a little off.