Murphy's War

One of the unexpected consequences of the cinematic digital revolution is that it doesn’t take much to look epic anymore.  Films like Fitzcarraldo and Apocalypse Now, produced under extreme conditions and reaching the finish line by sheer force of will, could now shave months off the production schedule with a competent visual effects team.  In short, there’s no longer any reward for doing things the hard way.  But that’s exactlywhat’s so appealing about Murphy’s War (1971), a mixed-message anti-war film shot in Venezuela that hearkens back to an era when making movies wasn’t just a financial challenge – but a physical one as well. 

After surviving a U-boat attack, Murphy (Peter O’Toole) is rescued by a strong-willed female doctor (Sian Phillips) and nursed back to health at her missionary hospital.  Even though the war is near its end, Murphy insists on destroying the German sub by any means at his disposal.  That means jerry-rigging an airplane with homemade bombs and tracking his foe over the Orinoco river.  But Murphy’s private war quickly becomes a personal obsession, one that has dangerous consequences for anyone caught in the crossfire.

 

Director Peter Yates was best known at the time for his groundbreaking chase sequence in Bullitt (1968).  So Murphy’s War was probably greenlit on the idea of transposing that burnt rubber excitement to aerial acrobatics (O’Toole’s first joyride could give Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible stunts a run for their money).  Yet it’s the tenacious ingenuity of O’Toole’s character that makes the most lasting impression; every time you think he’s licked, another against-all-odds plan is put in motion.

 

O’Toole specialized in playing morally ambiguous madmen and Murphy is yet another feather in his cap.  His affected Irish accent tends to come and go, but he’s all-in when it comes to crafting an admirably unlikable character.  Sterling Silliphant’s script downplays the mania for a more heroic angle, yet sticks with a downbeat ending that makes his pacifist point.  But the film’s most compelling aspects are its exotic production values and practical sets.  Murphy’s War is a film that just feels like it was a challenge to bring to the screen.  And in an era when insurance contingencies and intimacy counselors are more important to the bottom line, that’s damn refreshing.   

 

Arrow Video’s limited-edition Blu-ray plucks this one out of the obscurity of the Paramount library and adds a new collector’s booklet and visual essay by film critic David Cairns to the archival interviews, trailers and image galleries.    

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