Some time ago I started listening to the excellent Fighting On Film podcast by two British gentlemen. It's excellent.
This 1978 movie is one of the first movies they reviewed, and apparently it has an enormous cult following in the UK, particularly amongst military movie fans and British servicemen. It's a guilty pleasure of mine, and I was surprised to find that I'd never reviewed it.
Set in the 1970s at the tail end of the mercenary era in Africa, the plot involves a group of British mercenaries, all with British Army backgrounds, who are recruited to serve in a commando mission to free a secretly imprisoned African leader. Outfitted with merchant banker money, the band assembled in the UK and trains in Africa, outfitted in period British uniforms (but with the members retaining the berets and cap badges of their old units), and generally European NATO firearms of the era. They preform their mission of rescuing the president, only to be betrayed, and then must fight their way, basically, to Rhodesia.
Coming just at the end of that period in time in which there had been in fact a lot of European mercenaries with roles in Africa, and in fact advised by "Mad" Mike Hoare, who was one of the more famous ones, the film had a certain air of credibility to it. It's loved, as noted, by British military film aficionados.
Frankly, the film ain't great.
It has a good cast, including Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and Hardy Kruger. The rough outline of the plot, taken from a novel, isn't bad. The equipment is fascinating.
But, the production values are frankly low, and the actors, save for Kruger and Moore, are past their prime and not credible in their roles at all. Burton, as Col. Faulkner, was well into his alcoholic demise at the time and looks like he'd not make it more than a few 100 yards into the bush. Harris, who looked vibrant a decade prior in Major Dundee, doesn't look much better. It just doesn't work.
Still, like Major Dundee (which is much better), there's just enough there, there, that the film is worth watching and somehow compelling. It's heavily flawed, but you can almost see the move that might have been.
In terms of historical accuracy, we'll just note that there was a lot of mercenary action in Africa in the 60s and 70s as the old European empires fell apart. Professional European soldiers, not all of them the most reputable, found roles in those wars, most notably in the Congo. A certain cache developed about them that found itself expressed in novels and films, with this being one of the better known ones.
In terms of material details, the producers of this film chose to outfit the actors as if they were a British army unit of the time, and they look like one. That probably isn't how an actual mercenary outfit would look, but as is often noted about this film, these guys do look good in the uniforms, physical decline aside. The weapons chosen are a mixture of older British pattern uniforms and selective fire FALS, which are clearly not being really fired, as the recoil from a FAL on full automatic is pretty heavy.
All in all, it's entertaining, but not great.
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