A Vietnam veteran, Ray Hicks (Nick Nolte), gets conned into helping an old Marine friend, John Converse (Michael Moriarty), smuggle drugs into the country but ends up having to go on the run with his friend's wife, Marge Converse (Tuesday Weld), when the deal goes sour. Involving old buddy Nolte and Tuesday Weld in their doomed dope deal, only to wind up on the lam. Things go wrong, it precipitates an exciting chase by a motley group (Anthony Zerbe, Richard Masur, Charles Haid, Ray Sharkey) through the corrupt moral wasteland of counter-culture/CIA- culture America. Try to rip him off and he'll rip you apart!. A week ago they were strangers. An hour ago they were lovers. Now they are targets !.
Thrilling and compelling story of late-60s disillusionment. Dealing with a traumatised Vietnam war correspondent can draw no more cheap morals from the bloody absurdity around him . ¨In a world where elephants are pursued by flying men, everyone's gonna want to to get high¨, Nolte reasons , as he blindly steps into the heroin business and joins the Dog Soldiers. On the way, power-play is mirrored in the casual sadism of the pursuers and the conventional 'MacGuffin' theme of the 2kg bag takes on a metaphorical charge. This film results to be a notable blend of drama, action, suspense and tragedy. Based on Robert Stone's novel 'Dog Soldiers', here Nolte gives a nice acting as a temperamental Vietnam vet who's enlisted in a smuggling scheme to transport a large amount of heroin into California. Along with the three main actors: Nolte, Weld, Moriarty, providing enjoyable interpretation, there's a splendid plethora of secondaries, such as: Anthony Zerbe, Richard Masur, Ray Sharkey, Gail Strickland, Charles Haid, Joaquín Martínez, and David Opatoshu. Outstanding period musical score by composer Laurence Rosenthal and catching songs from Creedence Clearwater Revival, including title song. As well as colorful and evocative cinematography by cameraman Richard H. Kline, shot on location in Durango, Mexico and San Diego, Oakland, Arch Street, Berkeley, Newhall, California, USA.
The motion picture was well directed by Karel Reisz. He nimbly avoids the usual issues, finds the pace of his material early and sustains brilliantly, emerging with a contemporary good film of hard-edge adventure and three superb character studies. Deemed to be one of the most influential 'British New Wave' directors, Reisz was a prestigious editor, writer and filmmaker. In the 1950s he was one of the founders of the Free Cinema movement. His subsequent feature films have often tended to focus on working-class angst and class structure in general, with social outcasts at their center. He wrote his famous book, "The Technique of Film Editing", before becoming involved in professional filmmaking, it was reviewed - not entirely favorably - by an actual film editor, Seth Holt. When Reisz made his first feature film, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (original title) (1960), he hired Holt as his editor. During his later years he worked increasingly in theater direction. Directed three actresses to Oscar nominations: Vanessa Redgrave (Best Actress, Morgan, A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966); Isadora (1968)), Meryl Streep (Best Actress, The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)), and Jessica Lange (Best Actress, Sweet Dreams (1985). Who'll Stop the Rain(1978) rating: 6.5/10. The film will appeal to Nick Nolte fans.
