Tuareg - El guerrero del desierto

I don't know how many times I have watched this movie when I was a kid; It was one of my favorite movies. Action packed and I mean a good action flick.

It's worth watching!

NCIS's Mark Harmon headlines in this intriguing action outing brought to us by the prolific and ever dependable Enzo G. Castellari.

The story concerns a noble Tuareg chieftain who wages a one man war against an entire military force after they take prisoner a man who he had previously taken in as a guest (the said individual being traditionally also under the Tuareg's protection) As it happens, the seized man actually turns out to be the former leader of the country who has been illegally overthrown and who the people wish to return to power.

Well first off, I must say that it is admittedly very refreshing to see an Arabic hero in a Western film and the concerted attempt by the film makers to portray the cultural differences between the said protagonist and his enemy. Our hero is shown as a man of true honour, proud of his culture and steadfast to its traditions and yet blissfully ignorant of political developments immediately outside of his domain. Certainly this fact is best illustrated during the films surprising climax (which I won't spoil here!)

Unfortunately, it has to be said that as an action film this doesn't quite deliver enough of the requisite goods although I must concede that what action there is is very well handled, especially in one admittedly awesome sequence wherein our hero wipes out an entire garrison in a particularly explosive manner.

Final verdict: Certainly worth viewing but make no mistake, this is not the all out action extravaganza that many reviewers on the internet taut it to be.

A mysterious man from a feared Saharan tribe, the Tuareg, makes it his mission to hunt down a group of soldiers responsible for abducting a man his tribe gave shelter to. He uses his highly developed survival skills, honed from life in the harsh desert, to deadly effect.

Italian director Enzo G. Castellari was something of a specialist when it came to action movies. He made several in different popular sub-genres of the day – spaghetti westerns, poliziotteschi, post-apocalypse sci-fi, etc. But with Tuareg - the Desert Warrior he made an action film which was decidedly less derivative than most other Italian actioners. It was unusually set in the Sahara desert, with an Arab warrior as the hero. Having said this, I felt while I was watching it that it definitely played out like a spaghetti western in terms of structure, characters and action. After all, it features a mysterious illusive loner hero with highly developed weapon skills who embarks on a mission to take out nasty villains who have committed criminal acts against powerless civilians and he does this pretty much by himself. There have been a ton of Italian westerns that followed that template, so this one is fairly derivative plot-wise but benefits in distinctiveness from its desert locations and Arabian characters. It's for these reasons primarily that this one gets plus points, as well as a somewhat interesting climax in which the central hero's ignorance of western politics leads to an unexpected climax. Adding some additional class also is a dramatic score from the ever dependable Riz Ortolani. All-in-all, this is not great stuff by any means but it's certainly one of the more individualistic Italian genre flicks from the 80's.

The tempo is slow and calm, which enhances the tremendous impact of this very educational and almost proverbial film, teaching you a lesson about destiny, the handling of it by dealing with it and not escaping it, and a politically very thought-provoking fable. Mark Harmon makes a credible impersonation of the lonely warrior fighting an entire world which he cannot understand, and bý his actions he actually unintentionally adds to the absurdity and incredible folly of the political world. The land of the Tuaregs has no borders, it's just an endless desert impossible to survive in for ordinary mortals, but the Tuaregs have learned to cope with it and almost master it. This impressing film will be worth thinking of a lot a long time afterwards, until it's time to return to it for refreshing the lesson.

I did watch this movie usually on TV in 1994, when it came up the first wave of DVD l purchased it however unfortunately it was a VHS transfer into DVD without any restoration, bad footage spoils the whole movie, one of the most iconic Italian director Enzo G. Castellari made an endeavor in this unusual picture.

The story is quite interesting where a Tuareg's tribe leader Gacel Sayah (Mark Harmon) who shelters two fugitives, then sudden appears the Army and arrest them, Garcel Sayah complains saying that they are his guest and according Tuareg's law of a thousand years nobody can takes without his previous permission, under this point and extremely upset by such affront, so he starts a revenge against the soldiers and the Army.

He sets free his guest from the prison who actually is major revolutionary leader of the (Unknown) country Abdul El Kabir (Luis Prentes) taking him thru for a deadly part of the desert into the border, The old Kabir is free to gather forces to overthrow the corrupt government, sadly the ending is too unbelievable and melancholic, the best sequence took place at desert, also Sayah who get respecting for his most tireless pursuer Captain Razman (Paolo Malco), however in the fortress when Saylah set free Kabir and before escaping there he kills all military garrison letting the famous Rambo be ashamed to be overcame in this contrived sequence!!

Resume:

First watch: 1994 / How many: 3 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 6.