ma-cortes Well-made War adventure in which an officer (Michael Caine) is assigned by superiors (Nigel Green, Harry Andrews) leading an unit of ex-convicts on a dangerous mission in WWII North Africa. Michael Caine reluctantly has joined the ranks of the misfit bunch. They must execute an impossible assignment ,as bombing attack on German fuel supply depots. As a British tough Army officer to command a group of hardened ex-con, as murderers, thieves and a gay couple. To add intrigue a German nurse female (Vivian Pickles) is kidnapped and after that they are double-crossed.This exciting war/adventure about a misfit band of crooks who are led by Michael Caine on a daring mission whose objective results to be destruction of the Rommel's indispensable fuel depots, it is packed with noisy action, suspense, thrills and is quite entertaining. Runtime film is adequate, ninety minutes and some but isn't boring and gets lots of amusement for the fast-movement. From the beginning until the ending , the action movie is continuous. Interesting screenplay by Colin and Bragg based on an original story by George Marton. This is one of the best of several movies about commandos on suicidal missions from beyond behind enemy lines. The film gets a certain likeness along the lines of ¨Tobruk¨, ¨Kelly's heroes¨ , ¨Where eagles dare ¨ and especially in the wake of ¨Dirty dozen¨ and group of films that were made regarding to warlike adventures during the 1960-1970 years about special forces in dangerous missions . However, the picture obtained limited success at the box office. Michael Caine is top notch as good and unwilling officer ; rough and gruff Nigel Davenport is nice as leader of the motley group. Michael Legrand musical score is gorgeous and with the famous song 'Lili Marlene' at the initiation and the end . Cinematographer Edward Scaife gets a glimmer and glittering photography filmed on location in Spain and at Shepperton Studios , Middlesex, England. The motion picture is correctly produced by Harry Saltzman, James Bond movies producer, and well directed by Andre De Toth. Rating : good film, relentless plot twists and a warlike action keep you breathless.

Jonathon Dabell "Play Dirty" is a brutal, handsomely-photographed WWII film set in the North African desert. The plot invites comparison with the Robert Aldrich classic "The Dirty Dozen", but this film is, I think, the lesser of the two. While the characters here are even more dislikable than those in Aldrich's movie, the pace of "Play Dirty" is sometimes plodding and the film is littered with half-assed ironies, none more so than the cruelly hard-edged ending.A British petroleum trader working in North Africa during the Second World War is unhappily assigned to go on a dangerous mission, despite the fact that he thought his job description protected him from such risky front-line soldiering. The man, a certain Captain Douglas (Michael Caine), is even more displeased when he meets the team with whom he will be travelling. Made up of a gang of hardened thugs, wackos and ex-cons who answer to no-one but their self-styled leader, Captain Leech (Nigel Davenport), the group are as disreputable a bunch as any ever assembled. Their mission involves locating and destroying one of Rommel's fuel depots in the desert, miles behind enemy lines. As they approach the depot, the group find tensions amongst themselves mounting, especially the bickering officers Douglas and Leech. Things take an even uglier turn when the team reach their objective only to learn that they've been double-crossed…..The acting in "Play Dirty" is definitely a strong point. Caine and Davenport bounce off each other perfectly, creating a wholly credible feeling of rivalry and contempt that gradually changes into mutual, if doomed, respect. There are several unconventional factors that set the film apart from others of its type. One is the incredibly cruel and abrupt ending, which has been mentioned already. Another is the way the script populates the film with hideously self-centred and dishonourable characters, some of them quite daring for a 1968 film (the two gay Arabs, for example, who are not standard types for a movie of this genre and era). There are areas where the film loses marks, however. The plodding sections are one such flaw. Another is the fact that too many of the subsidiary characters, regardless of how unconventional they are, are under-developed (in "The Dirty Dozen", say, the lesser roles were just as well-rounded as the main ones). "Play Dirty" is an interesting and fairly original war film, not a classic by any stretch of the imagination but definitely one that you should keep an eye out for.

markjoel60 This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Thank God I saw it for free. I would have hated to waste my money on it.First off, there isn't a character in the movie that is in any way likable. Michael Caine comes close, but even he is pretty flawed. The rest of the "commandos" are made up of disgusting ex-cons. There are the two gay Arabs, and three guys who try to rape a red cross nurse, and the "leader" who has no trouble sending his men off to get killed so he can escape.The "mission" is anything from suspenseful. They are to blow up a fuel dump. Sounds exciting, right? Well, the footage follows them through endless sandstorms and fixing flat tires. Yes, you read that right. The "suspense" is whether they will run out of spare tires. We actually WATCH them change something like 12 flats on the way. That's how incredibly exciting this movie is.They get to the fuel dump to find that it is a decoy. So, nothing to blow up. And at this time, for some very convoluted reason, the British army decides that they don't need these guys anymore, and radios their whereabouts to the Germans to kill them.So, now at least we'll have an exciting race to freedom? Nope, instead, they decide to blow up a different fuel dump, to create a diversion. But, when they get into the place, they set off a trip wire, and the Germans come to get them -- calling out their names over a loudspeaker.Really weird. If the Germans knew where they were and where they were going, why did they let them get all the way into the dump before springing the "trap?" Instead, they wait until they get into the fuel depot, and set all of their charges. Yeah. Right. That would happen.So, they blow the dump, the leader sells out all of his men -- except for Michael Caine, since he's been offered $2000 to bring him back alive.OK... so, the men are all betrayed and killed, and Michael Caine and Nigel Davenport survive. The British troops come in with tanks, and they decide to go get rescued. Since they are wearing German uniforms (they wore them to blow up the dump) they tie a white flag around a stick and walk out into the road.Some British guy walks up behinds them and machine guns them to death. Credits roll.Yep. The two "Heroes" of the movie die due to a random act of violence.It's almost like the movie suddenly ran out of budget and decided: "That's a wrap. Kill them off and we'll go home." I wasted 2 hours of my life watching this tired, unimaginative and totally unrealistic movie that ended with a gracefulness of a bomb.

sutoke Prescient, dark slice of a desert war campaign -- a band of jaded misfits is sent on a critical dangerous mission -- that you will not be able to erase from memory. The tension De Toth creates in one scene of a booby-trapped way-station, with long patient shots and close ups of sweat beads, surpasses any but the most masterful of Hitchcock. Michael Caine's role as a reluctant oil executive tagged on to the mission is a study in ambivalent survival. The characters are some you'd never expect. De Toth is among the most interesting directors no one has ever heard of. His distaste for the studio system has meant that many of his movies have been overlooked. His style of storytelling is terse and sparse, almost unfinished, leaving the viewers to fill in their own ideas. Probably unsatisfying to some, but fascinating in his contrast to so many over-explaining movie makers.Syriana owes much to the tenor of this story. It is the flip side of Band of Brothers. A story that today holds more lessons than ever.