La escoria del desierto

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 (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.

Well-made War adventure in which an officer (Michael Caine) is assigned by superiors (Nigel Green, Harry Andrews) leading an unit of ex-convicts on a dangerous mission in WWII North Africa. Michael Caine reluctantly has joined the ranks of the misfit bunch. They must execute an impossible assignment ,as bombing attack on German fuel supply depots. As a British tough Army officer to command a group of hardened ex-con, as murderers, thieves and a gay couple. To add intrigue a German nurse female (Vivian Pickles) is kidnapped and after that they are double-crossed.

This exciting war/adventure about a misfit band of crooks who are led by Michael Caine on a daring mission whose objective results to be destruction of the Rommel's indispensable fuel depots, it is packed with noisy action, suspense, thrills and is quite entertaining. Runtime film is adequate, ninety minutes and some but isn't boring and gets lots of amusement for the fast-movement. From the beginning until the ending , the action movie is continuous. Interesting screenplay by Colin and Bragg based on an original story by George Marton. This is one of the best of several movies about commandos on suicidal missions from beyond behind enemy lines. The film gets a certain likeness along the lines of ¨Tobruk¨, ¨Kelly's heroes¨ , ¨Where eagles dare ¨ and especially in the wake of ¨Dirty dozen¨ and group of films that were made regarding to warlike adventures during the 1960-1970 years about special forces in dangerous missions . However, the picture obtained limited success at the box office. Michael Caine is top notch as good and unwilling officer ; rough and gruff Nigel Davenport is nice as leader of the motley group. Michael Legrand musical score is gorgeous and with the famous song 'Lili Marlene' at the initiation and the end . Cinematographer Edward Scaife gets a glimmer and glittering photography filmed on location in Spain and at Shepperton Studios , Middlesex, England. The motion picture is correctly produced by Harry Saltzman, James Bond movies producer, and well directed by Andre De Toth. Rating : good film, relentless plot twists and a warlike action keep you breathless.

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

"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*