PlayDirty

Anti-war films weren't invented simply to accommodate the Vietnam experience. A quick perusal of cinematic history will find each major conflict (and plenty of minor ones) have been used as a backdrop for stories full of the horrors and hypocrisy of warfare. In fact this negative spin is a lot more common than the relatively short-lived, government-mandated patriotism of Hollywood's golden years. But 1967's The Dirty Dozen proved you could still have a good time doing it and paved the way for dozens of like-minded imitators.

Play Dirty (1969) followed two years later with a title that made the connection embarrassingly obvious. But the production ran into problems even before it hit theaters. Richard Harris was the first to jump ship - reportedly due conflicts with co-star Michael Caine - then original director Rene Clement was fired and replaced by Andre De Toth who hadn't been behind a camera for six years. Yet despite the plagiaristic plot and shuffled casting, Play Dirty winds up delivering a slam-bang adventure story with a timely nihilistic bent.

Recruited from a cushy desk job in the British Army, Capt. Douglas (Caine) is charged with leading a special operation behind enemy lines to destroy a German fuel dump in the middle of the North African desert. If that wasn't bad enough, Douglas is merely a patsy, attached to the group to satisfy political demands. The man actually in charge of the mission is Capt. Cyril Leech (Nigel Davenport), a convicted felon whose team consists largely of con men and murderers. The film opens with Leech returning from his last failed mission with yet another British officer...this one suspiciously shot in the back.

But Douglas turns out to be a different breed entirely, proving to be surprisingly useful as he and Leech struggle for control of the group. Dodging Nazi patrols, suspicious locals and the unforgiving nature of the desert itself, it seems they might actually make it to their objective in one piece. But back in high command, it becomes clear the mission was nothing more than a ruse designed to set the stage for a major attack by less "expendable" forces. To survive, Douglas has to set aside his oh-so-British tendencies and learn to - you guessed it - play dirty.

The film differs from its illegitimate source material in a number of ways, most notably in that there's very little attempt to humanize this gang of misfits and criminals. Caine and Davenport are pushed front and center with the script focusing on their often unspoken battle of wills; everyone else is a colorful but ultimately insignificant background player. Luckily, Caine puts on a hell of a show. As the soft-spoken but not entirely upfront Capt. Douglas, his heroics are inherently selfish, a survival trait that finally finds some common ground with Davenport and his crew. The lesson, it seems, is that war has no place for intentional heroes...only accidental ones.

But as it turns out, Play Dirty is more of a survival film than a war movie with De Toth and cinematographer Edward Scaife (who also shot The Dirty Dozen...surprise, surprise) staging some incredible man versus desert scenarios, including a tense Fitzcarraldo-esque Jeep journey over a mountainous cul-de-sac. The film's finest moments are made up of wordless marches into a blasted wasteland, skin stripped by sand and blistered by the sun. The twist ending may not seem like such a twist anymore, but Play Dirty blazes a trail getting there that deserves a hell of a lot more credit than history has given it so far.

Twilight Time's 3000-copy limited edition Blu-ray looks great from the word go and comes with liner notes, the original theatrical trailer and an isolated music & effects track.