Play Dirty | Michael Caine, Nigel Davenport | Great Late-60's WWII Film...

Play Dirty | Michael Caine, Nigel Davenport | My favorite war movie

DVDs:

Play Dirty

	Play Dirty Michael Caine, Nigel Davenport MGM (Video & DVD), 2007 average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Great Late-60's WWII Film...

This was always one of my favorites when I was a boy in the 1960s. PLAY DIRTY had the anti-hero grittiness that is so much more realistic--as I found out during my own military service--than the highly stylized war films that came out just after (and glorifying) WWII. There are notable exceptions, of course, that show combat pressure and human faults for what they are: Halls of Montezuma, featuring the late, great Richard Widmark as a stress-crippled Marine officer; Decision Before Dawn, with Oscar Werner and Richard Basehart...and various excellent so-called "B" movies that are really "A"s in in my book such as Hell Is For Heroes and Pork Chop Hill. PLAY DIRTY is a real man show, with cold and hard heroes who aren't really all that likeable, but are essentially human. It's much like Tobruk with Rock Hudson, and the [...] Raid On Rommel with Richard Burton (going thru the motions skillfully for the money), but with a much more sophisticated subtext of antagonism and tension between the main characters. Michael Caine and Nigel Davenport are superb. This is guy-oriented war storytelling at its dark, tough-guy best. The shocking and very sudden ending is right in line with the nihilistic--and all too realistic--Vietnam-era ethos of which this film is a part.

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My favorite war movie

I first came to love this movie as a child, watching it late at night, cropped and in black and white, on an old Zenith. I was curious to see it after 30 years, and finally resorted to getting an import copy from Japan a few months before this re-release. I'm happy to say the movie holds up wonderfully, and seeing it in the proper aspect ratio is real pleasure.

This has to be one of the most cynical war movies ever made, and those who devalue this movie as a knock-off of The Dirty Dozen overlook the way that movie still romanticizes heroism while Play Dirty will have none of it. From the opening scene of Play Dirty, where an officer's corpse is returned likely shot by the man returning it, there's no sentimentality here, no acts of stunning bravery, just a bunch of schmoes who don't even much like one another trying to stay alive. This movie presents war as a sort of lazy grand incompetence that occasionally awakens to explosion, warfare, murder, and rape. While the supporting cast of outlaws seem very B-movie (like those guys who talk in dub in a Sergio Leone western), Caine and Davenport more than make up for it. The desert photography and scenery is outstanding -- not Lawrence of Arabia pretty but rather the third enemy that threatens to sandblast them right off the screen throughout the film. Some find desert scenes slow; I find them the mesmerizing. And Play Dirty remains my favorite war film of all time. It's the only war movie I know that never lies even once.

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Stunningly Nihilistic

The other reviewers have done a good job of describing this movie. I want to say that this is perhaps the most totally depressing movies ever made. Nothing good comes from any of the action here-no great victory, no male bonding, nothing, just murder, violence, rape...fabulously nihilistic. This sure isn't a feel good movie. It isn;'t a pleasant experience. But a great movie.

An Excellent War Movie!!

A previous reviewer has done an excellent job describing the movie's plot and characters. I would like to emphasize that Play Dirty, in my opinion, is one of the more accurate portrayals of the North African theater of operations in World War 2. I have been hooked on this movie for almost 30 years! I watch it probably 6-8 times a year and never tire of it! Michael Caine is fabulous as Captain Douglas. It is rewarding to watch as Captain Douglas learns the ropes, gains confidence and ultimately, some respect from his group. I like the ironic plot twist that has Captain Douglas group succeed when the High Command suddenly does not want them to! I rank this movie as one of my all time favorites right up there with the Desert Rats (Richard Burton)The Desert Rats and The Desert Fox (James Mason)The Desert Fox which I also very highly recommend! There is also a real good Italian film titled El Alamein that you may equally enjoy!El Alamein Two other titles came to mind after I wrote this review: Humphrey Bogart's classic Sahara Sahara and another oldie but goodie Five Graves to Cairo Five Graves to Cairo.

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UK Dirty Dozen

One big star, a few lesser knowns and a bunch of who are they. Compared to the Dirty Dozen, it doesn't have the star power. However, it is a pretty good yarn seen from the Brit side of WWII.

reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4

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