Frederick Forsyth's novels always lay firm ground for a screenplay adaption and next to Fred Zinneman's 1973 Day Of The Jackal this is the finest of the batch. It is not by any means perfect film-making as much of the sequences move along in a very by-the-numbers fashion, though never clumsily. Director Irvin seems more adept at the handling of his cast. Walken is solid as the coldly pragmatic soldier-for-hire, one of his best suited roles. And he has very convincing support all round.
There is very much the sense that the mercenary soldiers involved are bottom of the food chain in the greater and greedier scheme of things, and the money being offered for jobs risking life and limb seems pittance at that. The loneliness of the Walken character who seems to walk the land of the dead on civie street and only find his zest in combat is nicely emphasised. Most of the bureaucrats and tyrants are played perfectly for their complete lack of consideration for humanity. There are few if any obvious moral dictations in the narrative and this remains faithful to Forsyth's approach. We are, after all, not playing with children here. This is a most violent and unscrupulous underbelly of the political world. The violence is matter of fact, only stylised in one particular brief scene of torture with a shard of glass that this viewer found to be one of the most painful from any film.
The ending is certainly worth the wait as Walken's small fish turns the coup at the heart of the overall plot into a coup of his very own. In this there is something noble amidst the entire desolation of things and it is apparent that the man who wields the gun is always in charge.
There is very much the sense that the mercenary soldiers involved are bottom of the food chain in the greater and greedier scheme of things, and the money being offered for jobs risking life and limb seems pittance at that. The loneliness of the Walken character who seems to walk the land of the dead on civie street and only find his zest in combat is nicely emphasised. Most of the bureaucrats and tyrants are played perfectly for their complete lack of consideration for humanity. There are few if any obvious moral dictations in the narrative and this remains faithful to Forsyth's approach. We are, after all, not playing with children here. This is a most violent and unscrupulous underbelly of the political world. The violence is matter of fact, only stylised in one particular brief scene of torture with a shard of glass that this viewer found to be one of the most painful from any film.
The ending is certainly worth the wait as Walken's small fish turns the coup at the heart of the overall plot into a coup of his very own. In this there is something noble amidst the entire desolation of things and it is apparent that the man who wields the gun is always in charge.