Ein dreckiger Haufen

"Play Dirty" is one of those rare films that reassures you that some filmmakers are willing to try something different with a tired genre. The World War Two epic has been done a thousand times, but this one is different. Michael Caine is his brilliant self, supported ably by Nigel Davenport and Nigel Green in this film which has drawn comparisons to the "Dirty Dozen" but, I believe, strikes ground of its own. Andre de Toth directs with a style that was well before its time, giving this film something others lack - longevity. A top flick worth seeing. *Three and a half stars*

Play Dirty (1969)

You almost have to see this anarchic, nasty, selfish, brutal WWII movie as a comment on Vietnam, and on war. It's 1969. At first you think Michael Caine, for all his talent, is miscast, but the odd displacement of his character among a lot of very hardened, serious men is part of what works.

This is not like any WWII you've seen. It's an odd mixture of hardship, tedium, humor, and straight up masculine grit. It's set in the Sahara, so dunes and sand and dry nasty weather rules. There is a mission at hand, and these men have to be unorthodox and ruthless to succeed. But there are long stretches of just traveling and conquering the desert, of going day after day through storms and lack of storms. There is also fighting amongst the men, a somewhat horrifying (and unnecessary) attempted rape, some bloody carnage of natives, and of Germans, a long twenty minutes of Fitzcarraldo heroics with some cables, and so on.

But in the end, it really does capture something essential of war, including the nonsense of some of it, and the lack of rules, and the lack of personal safety that comes from chaos, and the difficulty of companionship and trust.

Somewhat similar to "The Dirty Dozen," in that its plot features a group of convicts recruited for a deadly mission during WW 2, this fast paced war epic is much more stylish and unpredictable than that crudely made, if undeniably entertaining, Robert Aldrich blockbuster. With great performances from Michael Caine and Nigel Davenport, as well as able support from a cast of fabulous British actors, the film features one terrific action sequence after another, with plenty of surprises in store. To say anything more would surely ruin many of those surprises for the unsuspecting viewer, but it should be noted that the story comes to a screeching halt with what is possibly the greatest and most hilarious "Ooops!" in film history.

Play Dirty surprises because of how 'dirty' it actually gets, and how it doesn't give any easy beats for its characters. It follows the seemingly usual tropes of the men-on-a-mission war flick, where a group of men are selected practically on the basis that they won't succeed in their mission, and that the end goal is to blow something up. But unlike The Guns of Navarone or the Dirty Dozen, Play Dirty puts the position of the British army in this desert scene as greedy and malicious and really only caring about getting to the oil, and surely before the 'decoy' team gets there. It's entertaining but it's not what exactly one would call 'fun' like Navarone. It's a story of unheroic men doing some heroic things and always for the almighty dollar.

In the film, Michael Caine is a Captain Douglas in the army- he doesn't look entirely like the army type and no wonder since he was formerly a Petro-exec- who is put in charge of a group to go through rocky terrain in the North African desert to bomb an oil field. Only big snag is that this isn't the first time the mission has been attempted, and Captains have died already. With this in mind, the head guy puts Cyril Leech (Nigel Davenport) in charge to make sure the Captain is kept alive - at a good cost of two thousand pounds. This doesn't mean that Cyril won't get sometimes in the way of the Captains orders, like when they need to pull up their trucks over a rocky mountain ridge and he refuses to unload the trucks. It's an uneasy partnership with their fellow soldiers also not always sure who to follow, especially when coming into some enemy territory, or when they come upon a 'fake' enemy outpost in a sandstorm.

Andre De Toth's film is rough and tough, as any men-on-a-mission war film should be, but it has something extra to keep one interested. This is the guts to keep things rightfully violent and shocking (when a mine goes off at one point as another mine is being diffused, it's one of those moments you'll jump in your seat even at home), and at most mildly amusing. The characters aren't very colorful or even terribly memorable, although Caine and Davenport are both fantastic in their parts, often fantastic at being understated (as Davenport's Captain says, "look, listen, don't move, that's the way you survive"). The action is also intense enough but moves at that pace where suspense is genuinely built like in the climax among the oil barrels and the barbed wire. Even a scene involving an attempted rape is shown without any punches pulled, until the one oddly-effective laugh had at the outcome of the scene.

It's a forgotten little wonder of the world war two movie, and it's more bitter than sweet with its view of the buck-stops-here mentality of wartime - or rather, as a character points out, how war is "a criminal enterprise", hence having a guy like Cyril, who was in prison for fifteen years until being put to use on the mission. Play Dirty doesn't get really going until twenty minutes in, but once it does it doesn't play safe. 8.5/10

After yet another failed covert operation, a specialist unit is given one last chance to show success to account for losses. When the commander learns of an oil station many miles behind enemy lines it is selected for the mission. Capt Douglas is chosen to head the team of ex-criminals to carry out the destruction. However a large military unit is sent out behind them. When the military unit are all killed, Douglas is forced to abandon his training and become a little more like the un-gentleman-like Capt Leech, and play dirty.

I had only seen this film once almost 15 years ago and had reasonable memories of it. I watched it again today because of this memories and it goes to show that a good end to a film can wipe out everything else that you could remember. I loved the ending to this film – I won't even talk about why in case I spoil it because it loses it's impact after seeing it once. However the rest of the film isn't up to the same sort of value. As it is, the plot is very much a version of the Dirty Dozen but in reality it doesn't have any training or recruiting that film does but instead leaps straight into `the action'. I say `action' because, although it sustains the interest, it is a rather plodding film that is consistent but has no high points as a result.

The story is good but the delivery is one that is clearly meant to make a point rather than entertain in the way Dirty Dozen does. Caine is good in the lead – one of his `young officer' roles a la Zulu. However he doesn't have much in the way of chemistry with xxxx, really there needed to be a lot more friction and sparks between the two, sadly the tension between the two was only very basic. It is mostly Davenport's fault as I found him to be lacking in real screen presence. He easily had the best character but failed to dominate with it – also I found it distracting that he looked a little like Sean Connery, I assumed that Sean was unavailable. The support cast are unmemorable – whereas many people can name all the dirty dozen, none of these really make an impression – only the gay pair stick but mainly because of how surreal it feels in the setting.

Overall this is an OK film with a good ending. It is consistently fair and never really dips above or below that standard. Worth a watch once but don't expect it to bare anything other than a passing resemblance to the Dirty Dozen – certainly not in the same league entertainment wise.