I wonder if I've actually seen this movie more than anybody else on the planet. Caught it three times in the theater first-run, owned it on every format I came across, still waiting on a blu. Even read the source novel THE BETTER ANGELS,which is played straight. (full disclosure: the movie had WRATH OF KHAN's trailer on it, which was probably one of the reasons I went back another couple times.)
Yeah, it is an utter mess of a movie, tonally all over the place. But the bits by themselves are often quite good. And it is as knowing -- or should that be prescient? -- about int'l politics as much higher-regarded films.
Connery gets a 'big speech' moment (probably demanded after his
'little speech' moment in OUTLAND, which is among his best bits ever IMO) that almost works, and it is hard for me to imagine anybody else in the role. Connery's is still my alltime favorite star/actor, and while he delivers a few times here, it is more about the wonderful ensemble cast (minus a couple of performers who look like actual amateurs, or perhaps stunt people who got way too many lines to try to read.)
Nielsen doesn't really get the good moments in this, but Robert Conrad makes the most of his, as does Henry Silva (though most folks probably remember him from this same year playing roughly the same terrorist in the godawful and irredeemably stupid MEGAFORCE, a movie that gives spandex a worse place in history than it already earned in the 70s, in which there is not even one sacrificial lamb to placate the god's of realistic storytelling.) Your favorite college basketball coach/pro football coach GD Spradlin is just terrific as the head of the CIA.
George Grizzard is absolutely super as the President, making this, like the TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING (fave film of all time, don't ask me to explain) prez played by Durning, another film where the second-billed character is really the meat of the whole film.
For me, Richard Brooks made three masterpieces: THE PROFESSIONALS, BITE THE BULLET and LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR (have tried watching IN COLD BLOOD a few times and never made it past the first hour); but I actually rewatch WRONG IS RIGHT as much as I rewatch THE PROFESSIONALS, which means I've probably seen it 40 times by now.
|