Beyond Justice

I never heard of this Italian made film...I caught on Long Islands ch.55 late night movie.. I was amazed.. its a fascinating adventure, beautifully photographed and well acted.. Sustained my interest even at this 2am viewing! It is somewhat cliched, and stereotypic, but an exciting tale well told.. In view of our present world conflict, it gives some insight into the tribal nomadic existences of the various cults that still exist !!, and the mores and values which still persist. Worth seeing...

If you are a big fan of Rutger Hauer you might even *enjoy* this movie, otherwise, don't spend your time on this one. The music is awful and so are the action scenes, if you want to see Rutger's action film i recommend seeing rather split second or arctic blue.

Someone lent me the DVD of this astonishingly bad film. I would normally have simply put it back in the pile and forgotten about it but I couldn't sleep well at night if I didn't warn people about this grade Z bomb, that makes "Robot Monster" or "Plan 9 from Outer Space" seem superb in comparison. From pathetic story line, through mesmerizingly bad screenplay to abysmal direction and - ultimately - acting that would be laughable, , this film has it all. How in God's name this abomination ever was allowed past the producer's desk is beyond me. I have poor writing skills and even worse cinematographic skills, yet I could have made a better job of this "film" whilst under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. I wouldn't know where to start explaining about the bad points because - like a time warp map of the universe, where all points are both the beginning, middle and end, so this film's bad points actually conglomerate into one hideous melee of garbage.

Well, unless I see the next millennium out, I won't be able to come across a film as bad as this. So I can honestly and fairly give this dog of a film the title "Worst film ever made". Ed Wood - eat your heart out.

This film is a lazy studio money grab. They took a five hour mini-series called Law of the Desert (AKA: Maktub) and chopped it down to around 90 minutes and released it as an action movie. The trouble is that the original mini-series was a whole lot more than an action movie. Hours of material were left on the cutting room floor including assassination attempts and the entire subplot involving Elliott Gould.

The editing is so sloppily done that some of the cuts will jar you. People disappear and reappear in inexplicable ways. And quite egregiously, Omar Sharif's character arc was largely removed from the ending.

On a positive note, many of the action sequences were largely left intact.

The synopsis on the video box hardly do any sort of justice to this movie, depicting it as more of a regular kidnapping story where a mother hires a rather unorthodox agent to trail her strange husband. But this movie has none of that. Filmed in Morroco, it is more like a modern tale of adventure in the deserts of Morroco complete with sword fights and camel rides.

A rich woman's husband, son of a Morrocan Prince, takes their son to Morroco with plans to live in grandfather's palace. While the grandfather declares the grandson heir to the throne and prepares him for living in the Holy Land and ridding himself of the life he once knew, the woman hires a few men (including Rutger Hauer) to get her grandson back. And it turns out to be a very dangerous mission.

This is a fantastic adventure film, though a pretty violent one, since it's a deadly mission and one that, although the main premise involves a kidnapping, continues on to involve all sorts of wild intrigue including that of a feuding Morrocan tribe. It seems so unusual because it is an ancient tale told in a modern setting when the family is taken away from their modern conveniences into a highly hostile desert scenery with completely different customs and culture.

These Italian filmmakers have given us something that I would less consider an action movie and more of an adventure tale. I would definitely recommend this movie if you're in the mood for something really different.