Mercenary Fighters

This is of the category of action films, and action is the yield with very little reprieve in this generic tale of contemporary mercenaries in central Africa, entangled with intratribal warfare as the party in power in an imaginary nation hires them to protect construction of a dam which will displace villages of the rulers' historical adversaries. The leader of the hirelings, Vitelli (Peter Fonda), assembles a group of individuals to his unsparing taste, including characters played by Ron O'Neal (listed as O' Neil in the credits), James Mitchum, and Reb Brown as D.J., among other stalwarts, and they decamp to the mythical nation where the stunt work begins. We are then privy to watching vicious attacks without stint by our heroes, with helicopter gunships and, of course, sophisticated ordnance, as croutoned bodies are sent flying by a seemingly limitless progression of explosions while one marvels at the determination to persevere of the luckless quarry. The type of creature who enjoys this sort of fare would undoubtedly be delighted if this course of behaviour were to continue, but the well-funded producers apparently prefer that a love element be present (with Reb Brown!) as well as a midstream shift of allegiance by D.J. which makes no sense at all. Brown obviously has a forbidding time with any dialogue, but does enjoy yelling, and does a great deal of that, making it, if possible, even more surreal that a collection of tribesmen, with a distinct cultural history, would desire that sharp shift of mores required to accept D.J. as their warrior chieftain. After all, being a mercenary is just a job, as we are notified often from the script; unfortunately, not a very capable job is evident in this production, with sloppy direction, flawed tactics followed by all combatants, and some very poor cast performances, although O'Neal tries to rise above it all.