Universal Soldier

Most of my friends think I'm crazy, but I love this film.

Honestly, I don't know what it is about it, but I can't stop watching it. I became a George Lazenby fan when I watched 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' and naturally, I wanted to see what else he had done. I came across a couple footnotes in articles that George had done a film called 'Universal Soldier' instead of 'Diamonds are Forever'. I was curious about 'Universal Soldier' and the lack of information on the internet about it. I decided to try and find a copy. After some research, I found out that the film has been released on VHS twice. Once in Britain, and once in the United States. I found a good U.S. copy on Amazon and bought it for 10 dollars. When I first watched it, I realised that it was horrible, but there was something about it that intrigued me. I watched it several more times, and then it hit me.

This movie is not an Action, nor a Drama. It's a story, maybe not an exciting one, but it's brought to the screen in such a way- with the camera shots, and wonderful music by Phillip Goodhand-Tait- that it seems almost artistic. Also, it's really quite hilarious when you watch it. Pay attention to Smith, Jesse, and Bradshaw's characters, the ad-libbed tongue in cheek humour. I'm sure nobody will agree with me, but that's what I think about Universal Soldier.

George Lazenby said that after doing the excellent On Her Majesty's Secret Service, he doubted that the James Bond era could continue much longer with the arrival of new films such as Easy Rider.

This could well be among the worst predictions made in movie history but its an interesting one that goes some way to explaining the thinking behind Lazenby's next project, Universal Soldier.

This film has the influence of Easy Rider written all over it and in trying too hard to copy the style of what was a cinematic one-off, Universal Soldier is prevented from developing into a coherent story.

Very little happens in this film and too little is clearly explained. From what I can put together only a couple of hours after seeing the film, Ryker (Lazenby) is a mercenary soldier in some kind of deal with an African group, represented by Mbote played by none other than Rudolph Walker, better known in the UK as Patrick Trueman in Eastenders. At night Ryker is haunted by the images of violence he has seen in his career.

The accidental shooting of a dog and its subsequent merciful (or is it bloodthirsty?) slaying during a bit of fun target practice seems to trigger Ryker's conscience as he loses interest in the African deal. He rents a basement flat, goes to parties, attends a political meeting, starts dating a schoolgirl(!) whilst his group members wonder what has happened to him.

Once he is found, it is too late. He has decided upon another way of life...

I'm actually making this sound better than it is. For the most part Universal Soldier is incoherent with jarring and misplaced musical interludes (the Easy Rider influence) and it is very difficult to tell what, if anything, is going on.

Despite this, it remains watchable throughout mainly for two reasons; its curiosity value in seeing how Lazenby followed up being 007 and the sheer strangeness of the whole film.

Anyone with an interest in either of these points would be recommended to try and track down this film although it isn't easy to get hold of.

Fans of Open All Hours may also want to watch this as Nurse Gladys Emmanuel makes an appearance and I'm sure its Mr Bronson from Grange Hill working in the airport in the first scene.

This film begins with an extremely influential mercenary known simply as "Ryker" (George Lazenby) coming out of retirement in order to assist an exiled African ruler overthrow the government of that particular country. Naturally, because of his mercenary mindset, Ryker makes it clear to everyone concerned that he is totally non-political and that his only concern revolves around the money--and nothing else. Curiously enough, while in the process of procuring arms in London, he suddenly begins to rethink his position and, together with his colleague "Jesse" (Ben Carruthers) decides to renege on his contract--with devastating consequences for all concerned. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that, in the course of watching this movie, I kept waiting for something interesting to happen. That moment never came as each and every scene seemed even more monotonous than the one preceding it. Likewise, the awful music accompanying many of these same scenes only made matters worse. In short, while there may be a few anti-war movies from this era that might be worth watching, this isn't one of them, and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

Maybe that will sound strange to you, but I have always confounded this movie, made in the early seventies, and the last of director Cy Endfield, with another mercenary tale, also from 1970-71, and also the last of another film maker: Gordon Flemyng, called THE LAST GRENADE. Both anti hero tales, as there were batches in those times, downbeat, gloomy, not for today's audiences anyway. I prefer THE LAST GRENADE, I don't know why....ha ha ha. Gordon Flemyng never gave us the same filmography as Cy Endfield. But of course both films are totally different. This one is a pacifist and totally improvised film in terms of script, not an action flick. Most audiences will find it tedious, because it is. We are here entirely in the seventies mood, hippy and so on...But this one is not charmless for old seventies dramas or thrillers. I don't care if that's not a masterpiece nor Cy Endfield's best work. I like it. Period. I would have imagined Nick cage in Lazenby's role, if it had to be remade. Maybe because of Cage in 2005 LORD OF WAR, also speaking of arms traffick.

Following George Lazeny's one off stint as James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Lazenby tried to break away from Bond and his second starring film 1971's Universal Soldier was described by Lazenby as "Ant-War and Anti-Bond". The movie is very much defined by the counter culture era that gave us such films as Easy Rider and Lazenby certainly disappears into his role as the mercenary known as Stryker, but its satire is so broad and indulgent the movie really does become a monotonous watch with endless scenes of lingering on weapons with "ironic music" placement and the lack of direction in the movie becomes an endurance test.

At its core the movie is a satire of the military industrial complex and the messy political and economic machinations that keep the engine of warfare running, but that's basically the only real point the movie has as it just endlessly repeats meandering directionless scene after meandering directionless scene. I will say the Lazenby is committed in his performance, but the surrounding movie is just so suffocating it's hard to get engaged in his characters journey through various arms dealers and shadowy political figures because by Lazenby's own words the movie has "no plot" and is "just a series of happenings" so there's nothing keeping you invested. I didn't feel right giving this film a quantifiable rating because it's a loosely structured movie that's lacking a point by design and your experience will be subjective. What others will see as indulgent lack of direction, others will see as daring film making of the era.