The Dogs of War (1981)

Undescribable Perfection

Good concept, poorly executed.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

After get respect from Deer Hunter Waken surfing in new project as mercenary leader on a Forsyth's novel adaptation,however the picture take a ride from Wild Geese's formula,it's measure how is short the vision of those producers in that time,even so could be better in little details which they didn't noticed,but a sharp eye realize,souless the movie ain't certanly,have good fresh moments.a few actually,but as entertainment works spent along the picture,some clichés were unnecessary as is former wife Jobeth Williams,but it's a old formula,the action is good,and the final is very predicable!!!Resume:First watch: 1999 / How many: 2 / Cable TV-DVD / Rating: 7

An effective and efficient little film detailing the story of a military coup in an African country. This one's based on a novel by Frederick Forsyth, so it has more realism behind it than some I could mention, and as an added bonus the director is John Irvin, who later went on to make the equally authentic HAMBURGER HILL. This one stands out because it has an actual plot to it leading up to the big action scene at the end, and that alone makes it more original than 99% of the guys-on-a-mission type films that came out in the 1980s.Christopher Walken, twitchy and solemn, stands out in this early role as the hard-ass mercenary who's seen plenty of conflict over the years. Walken is a guy who seems to live and breathe his characters rather than the other way round, and he's one of the best things in this film. His trip to the made-up African nation of Zangora is fraught with peril and tension, and yet seems real throughout in the same way that a film like BLOOD DIAMOND had the ring of authenticity to it.The violence that follows is expected yet none the less shocking for it, and even the character building exposition scenes back in the West are handled in such a way that you never lose interest in the proceedings. Then things shift up a gear for the pyrotechnic meltdown at the climax, which is more familiar to fans of action and war movies, but the strong storyline proceeding this moment makes it all the more full of impact.

The Dogs of War is a familiar but rock-solid early take on the international mercenary-led political coup before it became bastardized by a generation of pulpier Rambo knock-offs (including Christopher Walken's own McBain in 1991). Based on the novel by Frederick Forsyth, veteran of '70s spy-thriller The Day of the Jackal, there's more than a whiff of John le Carré here in regards to tone and pacing, and it's a worthy comparison. Debut director John Irvin keeps politics and social commentary a priority, while the poster fodder, blockbuster-y action is still thrilling, but a more grounded, associative afterthought. It's a fairly simple, firmly three-act affair, as Walken's steely mercenary Jamie Shannon leads two incursions into the (fictional) corrupt African republic of Zangaro: one surveillance, and one military siege. Irvin certainly isn't afraid to take his time, devoting long stretches to the intricacies of Shannon's subterfuge, from his being held up at the airport by corrupt border guards, to his fastidious memorizing the Latin names of local birds to substantiate his cover as ornithologist. It's slow-burning, but Irvin handles it capably, keeping the pacing magnetic. His work is fairly unshowy, and it's tempting to imagine how a more experienced director might have pushed the envelope further and really transformed Shannon's isolation into a transcendental Apocalypse Now type cinematic experience. Still, the film's almost entirely absent soundtrack is effective, and keeps the tension bubbling claustrophobically throughout. In fact, it's really just in the film's middle third, where a disgraced Shannon is unceremoniously evicted from Zangaro, where Irvin's slow-burning turns sluggish to a trying extent. Here, Irvin uncomfortably mirrors Shannon's listless reevaluation of his life, including a logistical planning segment that could easily have trimmed 20-30 minutes without sacrificing any cohesion. Still, Irvin is good at interrupting the potboiling with bursts of frantic action. The opening sequence, dropping the viewer in midway through a previous incursion, is a perfectly chaotic and disorienting note to ground the film on. Midway through the film, Shannon's capture and brutal beating by the Zangaro military (aided by some distressingly believable prosthetic work) lends gruesome consequence to his actions. Finally, Shannon's return with his strike team (including a moustached Tom Berenger and Raiders of the Lost Ark's Paul Freeman) is a long time coming, but such a spectacular maelstrom of pyrotechnics and grenade launchers it's a spectacularly cathartic blowout to the nearly two hours of buildup preceding it. Is it all worth it? By the end, we, like Shannon, are too bludgeoned by the senselessness of combat and political string-pulling (including a seedy reveal of Zangaro's coup being largely funded through British mining trade interests) to be sure. The "War! What is it good for?" moral isn't the most original, but Irvin certainly reiterates it with conviction. If nothing else, The Dogs of War is a crucial illustration in how best to work the notoriously eccentric Christopher Walken as a leading man: let him play the strong, silent type, and allow his eerily riveting facial expressions do the heavy lifting. Slinking through the film with ruthless composure like an eerily doll-like Terminator, Walken's Shannon is perfectly bottled up - hard-edged professionalism as survival mechanism. It's probably the closest he's ever come to a conventional leading man performance - there's no dancing, weird inflection or goofiness here, just the occasional sarcastic one-liner or glint of pure madness in his eyes exposing his stunted ideals and the deep responsibility he feels for his strike team threatening to volcanically explode. There's a multifold catharsis that comes from Shannon finally getting to let loose with a grenade launcher in the final incursion on Zangaro, but his dead-eyed departure from the war zone suggests there is still no peace to be had. It's a remarkably subtle performance, and enough to make you miss the days when Walken was an actor foremost, and Christopher Walken the cult icon second. -7.5/10

The Dogs of War is perhaps one of the finest war movies ever made and is the best mercenary movie ever made. From a technical and tactical perspective (with one notable exception when the four main characters stand together improbably for a moment) the movie is extremely accurate and gets both the details of the business correct and the tactics of such an operation correct.There was a time in the 60s, 70s and 80s when these kinds of operations were carried out by men like Mike Hoare. In the aftermath of Vietnam, veterans who felt out of place and out of sync often fell in with the mercenary crowd, willing to fight someone else's battle for money or loot.Perhaps one of the more impressive sequences is all of the logistical work which captures the nature of the dark world of the arms deals overseas and how the law is skirted.Chris Walken is especially effective in the title role; believable, yet vulnerable and certainly not the Rambo who always wins the fight.