Les chiens de guerre

The great thing about reading a Fredirick Forsyth novel is that you're educated while being entertained . He gives you facts and details on everything from modern jet fighters to Ukrainian history . The problem with this though is that the info tend to hold up the narrative which makes a Forsyth novel difficult to successfully translate to screen and to be honest the original THE DOGS OF WAR novel isn't really a book that will appeal to a cinema goer who's into no brain action shoot them ups . I can forgive this since I know what to expect from a Forsyth story but would Mr action fan ? I can just imagine a disappointed Arnie/Bruce/Sly fan slagging the movie off for having only two battle scenes , one at the start of the movie and one at the end , so let me point out that if you're expecting to see DIE HARD IN AFRICA it's maybe not you're kind of movie

If there's a problem with the movie it's mainly down to the structure of the novel with much of the running time taken up with planning the coup , getting the equipment , hiring the boat etc . I also noticed the dialogue was a bit iffy " Which one of your men do I kill to make way for mine ? " . Things like structure and dialogue don't matter too much on the written page but tend to leap out at you on the silver screen , but as many of the commentators on this page have pointed out it's an action film/political thriller with a brain . It's perhaps not as enjoyable as say THE DARK OF THE SUN or THE WILD GEESE but there's certainly entertainment to be had trying to spot the actor before they were a well known face

This movie is the most realistic treatment I've seen of what real mercenary operations and business travels are like. Any who have traveled to third world hell holes like "Zangaro" feel as though they must have had a camera following them around to get the background for this movie, the airport arrival, the hotel holding passports, the "tour guide" and the bar toast are as realistic as you can get. If you like movies that show the real nitty gritty, the backdoor politics, the backstabbing and intrigue that is international diplomacy catch this one the next time it's on cable.

Oddly enough I have never heard about "The Dogs of War" before now in mid-2019 when I found the movie. I saw that Christopher Walken was in it, and that was all I needed to sit down and watch it.

Turns out that "The Dogs of War" was actually a nice and enjoyable movie. Now, mind you, this movie definitely has its ups and down, some thrilling parts and some less thrilling parts. But the overall result of director John Irvin's movie from 1980 was actually good.

The storyline is good and you easily and quickly immerse yourself into the plot and storyline. And the pacing of the movie was, for the most parts, quite good.

The characters in the movie were fair and well enough detailed to make you have an interest in them. And they had a good ensemble of actors and actresses to portray the various roles. Needless to say that Christopher Walken was of course carrying the movie quite nicely. And he had some good assistance from the likes of Tom Berenger and Paul Freeman. It was a nice surprise to see the likes of Ed O'Neil and JoBeth Williams in a movie such as this, despite having small roles.

While "The Dogs of War" certainly was entertaining for what it turned out to be, I wouldn't really say that this the type of movie that you will watch more than once. It just didn't really have enough contents to warrant more than a single viewing.

There is a wonderful sense of good old days to "The Dogs of War" in terms of the way the story was told and how the movie was constructed and executed. So there could be some nostalgic value to the movie for some viewers as well.

The best of the "hired killers takes out a bassackwards third world African nation in ten minutes or less" genre. Christopher Walken fans will love this one as he occupies the camera for about 98% of the film and does an admirable job playing ringleader to a small band of mercenaries hired by London's Enron branch to take down some dude with a Gucci sword named Kimba, the benevolent ruler of Okka Bokka Boo. The pace is a little slow for my tastes but they threw in my favorite girl next door, JoBeth Williams, as Walkens ex-wife just to keep me occupied while the guns were being shipped in from Switzerland or somewhere. All I can tell you is the climax is worth waiting for. It's outstanding actually. The DVD is a little disappointing. 2ch sound and no widescreen. See if you can spot Ed O'Neill from Married With Children fame. 7 hand grenades/10

Not sure I was really aware of this before flipping it on. I was pretty surprised with some of the directions this one took. It definitely doesn't follow the super generic formulas that most movies would have. The inverse of that is, it's not super memorable in any particular way. So I give it credit for not fitting into a perfect mold of cookie cutter storytelling, but it needed something, a spark to make it stand out more.

Decent watch if it happens to be on, no real reason to go out of your way for it though.