The Wrath of God

It's a revolutionary central American country in 1920s. Oliver Van Horne (Robert Mitchum) is dressed as a priest. Irishman Emmet Keogh (Ken Hutchison) buys a ticket to anywhere to escape the growing unrest but it gets stolen. He encounters men loyal to revolutionary leader Colonel Santilla (John Colicos). He tries to rescue mute native girl Chela from them only to get strung up and then they're both rescued by Van Horne. They are captured by Santilla. The two imprisoned men and immoral gunrunner Jennings are recruited to assassinate his opponent Thomas De La Plata (Frank Langella) who is using a mine for his war chest. Rita Hayworth plays De La Plata's mother.

This has the Peckinpahesque violence like shooting a kid in the back. It's like a spaghetti western. The motivations are a little clunky. There are some compelling characters although Hutchison may not be leading man material. His looks is more towards villainous henchman. It's also notable for being Hayworth's last film. Her role is very much supporting and most compelling for the name. The Mexican location is great and the local colors are enticing. This is a fine B-movie.

What a splendid mix this film has. It uses Robert Mitchum in some ways better than any of his later vehicles ever attempted to. He plays "Father" Van Horne who on the surface is a Catholic missionary but in actuality is an accomplished bank robber cutting a swath through Central America with a prayer book in one hand and a Thompson machine gun in the other. He encounters Victor Buono as an English gun runner named Jenning and Ken Hutchinson as an IRA assassin named Emmett Keogh. Together the 3 men comprise Col Santilla Unholy Trinity charged with the liquidation of his nemesis, one Tomas De Laplata(Frank Langella) who has a murderous antipathy toward any and all clergy. With a setup like this you go along for the ride. Believe me you won't be bored.

The Wrath Of God is a kind of parody on the films Robert Mitchum was so routinely cast in back in the Forties and Fifties and even later on which he was doing know for a good paycheck. It's funny in spots, but ultimately doesn't quite come off.

Humphrey Bogart's The Left Hand Of God is the closest comparison one can make to this film. Bogart is also an adventurer in priestly disguise who aids a Chinese village during Kuomintang China days.

The Wrath Of God has Mitchum as a priest who is also a conman and handy with a variety of weapons, particularly the Thompson submachine gun. He, Victor Buono and Kenneth Hutcherson form an alliance of convenience which wasn't easy with Buono and Hutcherson refighting all the recent troubles in Ireland.

They get impressed into service by a strutting Colonel played by John Colicos whose behavior and that of his troops doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence that Colicos's bunch are the good guys. Colicos has to get inside the stronghold of a wealthy Don played by a young Frank Langella in one of his earliest films. Colicos is no prize, but Langella is positively psychotic, especially on the subject of religion. In his domain he's forbade the Catholic Church and any of its priests from any practice of the religion. He's got his reasons, but they're kind of out in left field to say the least. Mitchum's convincing guise a priest might just draw him out.

The Wrath Of God marked the final screen appearance of Rita Hayworth who got the film as an act of charity by Mitchum according to the Lee Server biography of Mitchum. Hayworth was having financial problems and was drinking heavily. Little did anyone realize that the reason for her bad behavior which occasionally got reported in the press back then was the onset of Alzheimer's Disease. The woman was drinking literally because she was losing her mind. She caused a lot of production delays. A truly sad end to the woman who in my humble opinion was the greatest screen sex goddess of all.

What delays Rita Hayworth didn't cause Ken Hutcherson did with an accident which injured his arm and the insurance had to pay big bucks. The film was delayed by several weeks while Hutcherson healed and as Server put in his book, the insurance company wound up owning the film.

They didn't wind up owning Gone With The Wind.

Remarkably funny western/revolutionary action pic stars Mitchum as a con artist who poses as a priest and Langella as the South American' dictator he and his friends have been blackmailed into assassinating. Hayworth appears briefly as Langella's tormented mother.

The action is fast and well staged, and the film's humor is so effective that it has often been seen (mistakenly, I believe) as a spoof of its genre, rather than as the fine example it is of the genre at its best. This whole line of reasoning bothers me, because it implies that an adventure movie can't be funny, that it has to take itself deadly serious. Much like "Duck, You Sucker!" this film's irreverent humor is one of its main ingredients, but it does not detract from its standing as a decent action flick. It's in fact closer to the way action pictures are made today -- I would question whether the critics and fans who see this as a "parody" also think that Schwartzenegger's "Commando" and "The Running Man" are also parodies?

As Mitchum's character becomes more involved with Langella's peasant village, giving them the sacrament because they haven't seen a priest in years, he begins to BECOME the priest of his con-game, but his actions keep his friends and Langella guessing as to the extent of his "conversion." This brings up the theme of the appearance becoming the reality, an unusual theme for a western action flick.

Good performances and an unusually good film results.

A tongue in cheek ,very funny "western" -although it features plenty of death-),not as tragic as Nelson's more famous "soldier blue" .A good chemistry between the three mates ,even though Mitchum is obviously the stand out.I did not go to confession for years ,but if I had a "priest " like him,well....His words are often Bunuelesque ,recalling "Nazarin"(1958) when he talks about the stranglehold the wealthy ones have on religion.In spite of the presence of a positive catholic character (Rita Hayworth's last part,her next-to-last was a strange French movie where she played the role (sadly premonitory)of a woman losing her mind "La Route De Salina" ),it is a very unfriendly look at the catholic Church,not exactly a Hollywoodian politically correct one.

The scene of the execution when the screen becomes completely black ("and it has not taken three days !say one of the condemned persons)is memorable ;and the title is thoroughly justified in the last scene when God's hand punishes the heathen .