arthur_tafero

Rod Taylor hams it up in this tale of a mercenary team put together by a diamond producer to rescue 50 million in diamonds that were left behind in a vault in a town that will soon be taken over by the rebels.

The rebels are a vicious group of animals who want independence from their benevolent European colonial rulers, similar to the Dutch in South Africa, and other places in Africa that had benevolent European colonial powers.

The fact that they planned to ransack these countries and take their natural resources (like their diamonds, for example) never enters the simple-minded heads of the majority of the audience. They are rooting for Taylor and Jim Brown as the good guys, when I was rooting for them to be killed. It is the same principle as the old cowboy and Indian movies. In the old days, we rooted for the cowboys to win, but in the last twenty years or so, we have come to root for the Indians against any adversary (including the US government; see Dances With Wolves). This film falls into the category.

Some viewers will consider this documentary dated. It may be a little dated, but for me, it still had a powerful punch, as I lived through that time period in the Metropolitan Area.

The no-frills documentary has the feel of a message on the emergency broadcasting network; something you never want to hear in real life.

There may be a few exaggerations of Marshall law and post-nuclear conditions, and then again, they may not be exaggerations.

The documentary follows a struggle in Berlin (which is no longer a threat) between Russia and NATO. UK is part of the NATO alliance, and closest to Russia. It would logically follow that they would get hit first.

The movie Threads does the narrative a bit more convincingly, and I would recommend that film over this one.

Americans are quite familiar with American rednecks, especially if you live in rural areas. The drink, gamble and womanize, and occasionally shoot people.

Australian rednecks are similar, but a bit crueler. They kill defenseless kangaroos for fun. I found that part of the film unacceptable, The rest of the film, however, shows how a relatively civilized school teacher spends his Christmas vacation. If it had been summer, he could have written a terrific (or horrific) essay on how he spent his summer vacation.

Our Robert Redford lookalike teams with the professional actor, Donald Pleasance (The Great Escape) to enact a strange trip through manly Australia in the outback.

To be a man there, you have to drink constantly, gamble mindlessly, womanize, and hunt helpless animals.

Instead of being repelled by this behavior, our hero joins right in, along with the previously genteel Donald Pleasance. This film was a revelation about him, in particular. It reminded me of the unbelievable transition of Ben Kingsley from Gandhi to Sexy Beast. This film is a similar transition for Pleasance.

Other than that, however, there is little to be learned from the film, other than there is no limit to human cruelty.