Who Dares Wins

Ok so some of the supporting actors are weak. the american cast are clearly on holiday. but Lewis Collins is great and should of been a star on the british cinema screen.however the british film industry was pratically dead at the time.great music score maybe not enough action.maybe collins should of been in wild geese 2 instead of scott glenn.

I have given this a 8 not because of the acting or the film its self,it was full of goofs,but the story was bang on the mark. How people forget how it was back in 1983 when the film came out if you get yourself along to a disused nuclear shelter like the one in Fife,Scotland (Secret Bunker)and take a look at the posters of all the CND marches,ban the bomb,etc you begin to remember how it was back then and the fear the cold war had on people,it was also a time of extreme Right,and left wing politics in the UK (Skinheads,Anarchists,National Front,and Communist party's) The SAS were also in the news,and the footage was almost like the Iranain Embassy footage at the time complete with Anna Ford news reading for ITN

From an army point of view,there was some good Accuracys amongst the goofs,the SAS train with live ammo,not blanks,the HQ was correct,the train in the Welsh hills,and they founded the flash bang grenade,the Hotel entry was also correct,blowing the hinges of the front door,with a shot gun,and the SAS train with other international army's (deemed friendly to the UK)

the funding for the terrorists was not too far from the real life truth,and it was a time of mercenaries,everybody was hiring everyone who was special op trained

I found the Film'looked' a bit like the Proffesionals TV series at the time in places,and the Music also conveyed this,this was deliberate on Sir Lew Grades part as to make a smooth transition from small screen to Big for Mr Collins

the real hero in the film is the Scottish actor who plays a fellow solider (of Collins) in the film,who plays it straight and realistic throughout

I have had this film since it came out (2 tapes,and a DVD),not in my all time top 10,but comes out from time to time,to bring back memory's of a forgotten time,and a time of Cold War fear

Donald Suttie

Who Dares Wins is a top British action movie made in the early 80's. It's star Lewis Collins was very well known in the UK from the hit TV show "The Profesionals". It was certainly made to cash in on the famous Iranian Embassy siege a mere year before they released this, which was televised live in Britain as the SAS stormed the building. Who Dares Wins has certainly dated as all 80's action films have, but it has great action scenes and stunt work. Collins is good in this and perhaps would have made a good 007, I don't know if he ever tested for the role but his Bond would have been closer to Connery than any since. The story is very silly and some scenes like the "rock concert" are cringe worthy but the action makes up for it, with a superb siege at the end.

One of the more remarkable aspects about director Ian Sharp's garrote-taut hostage thriller is not only how well the gritty, flint-edged film holds up, but in today's divided world of political ferment, with clearly so little altered in the higher echelon's continued abuses of power, the crass media obfuscation, 'Who Dares Wins' (1982) continued relevance is additionally damning. Reginald Rose's lean, perfectly paced screenplay places our uncommonly heroic he-man Captain Peter Skellen (Lewis Collins) at the fulminating center of a well-funded, far from slumbering anti-nuclear terrorist cell, imperiously masterminded by intractable zealot Frankie Leith (Judy Collins) the unrelenting tension increases as Skellen embeds himself ever deeper into this murderous conspiracy, his covert solo mission fraught with myriad dangers, not only to himself, his lovely wife Jenny (Rosalind Lloyd) and new born baby Samantha but, perhaps, the continued peace of the western world. All too few action thrillers are both intelligent and unflinchingly bellicose, the exciting action is breathlessly swift and brutal, no slow-motion languor, precise, surgical, expeditious, kill or be killed, every retaliatory action timed to the millisecond and it is this coolly pragmatic take on violence that is so frequently fetishized today which not only proves immediately striking but exhilarating, while you are well aware this is merely splendidly made escapist entertainment, there is a glacial verisimilitude to the characters steadfast actions, and the morally 'grey' areas of both parties are expertly factored in, this isn't merely just another prosaic, spoon-fed, unquestionably good surmounting Evil, as both protagonist's relentless appropriation of extreme measures to justify their disparate means expose where such terrible power can be abused to suit secret, destructive agendas. 'Who Dares Wins' is a genuinely thrilling film and its classic status is greatly deserved, enlivened by a magnificently propulsive score by the inimitable genius Roy Budd, and never again will we enjoy such an exemplary cast assembled for our sublime cinematic edification: Judy Davis, Edward Woodward, Richard Widmark, with especially refined work by Tony Doyle as bluff, no nonsense Colonel Hadley (SAS), Ingrid Pitt as the terrifyingly tenacious Helga and a truly commanding performance by Lewis Collins who is extraordinarily vivid as indomitable SAS Captain Peter Skellen, effortlessly exuding the fascinating kind of steely integrity one only rarely sees today.

Yes, there is some cheesy acting, but the payoff in this film is excellent! After reading other commentaries on this film, I won't spoil the ending for anyone who hasn't see the film when I say that it concludes with an accurate portrayal of special ops folks in action. But it is not only accurate, it is exciting, and well shot (love the view through the mask!). Combine accuracy and excitement and you have something that beats most of those other "special ops" films hands down. It makes Rambo et al seem downright nonsensical (which it is), and rightly so.

And as someone who studied in Europe for several years and saw the political far left in action on the streets of the major cities, I can tell you that many of them talked just like they do in the movie. And yes, the guerrilla theatre production lampooning the US is accurate, that type of theatre did take place.