Great Film overall

Boring

Beautiful, moving film.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

I really wanted to like this film, and it had a lot going for it with a strong cast (Christopher Walken, Tom Berenger, Paul Freeman, JoBeth Williams, and a young Ed O'Neill) and a solid premise from a Frederick Forsyth novel about mercenaries overthrowing an African dictator for a British executive wanting a more friendly of government for his business interests there. However, the characters were completely underdeveloped, there is nothing revelatory regarding the secret world of mercenaries for hire, and the story focuses on a very dull revenge plot instead of a more intriguing one around non-governmental organizations and geopolitics. In the film's favor, it was shot by ace cinematographer Jack Cardiff, who's shot everything from "The African Queen" to "The Red Shoes" to "Rambo," and director John Irvin certainly knows his way around an action scene. Michael Cimino reportedly did an uncredited rewrite on the script, but it certainly wasn't enough to save the film. Thinking about where this film went wrong and a film that took a similar subject and did is right was "Ronin," where a group of ex-special ops types are for hire to the highest bidder. That film also lacked character development, but it fit the "professionals" type of story, where they were all taking great pains to not reveal anything personal about themselves, but those characters all had believable motivations and there were just enough hints of their pasts to make them interesting and real. With "Ronin" the story was intriguing, the action was exciting, and the performances intense. Walken and Berenger are both strong actors, but they really don't have anything to work with here, so the end results is a pretty big disappointment. Overall, "The Dogs of War" is watchable, but should have been a whole lot better. FUN FACT! Director of photography Cardiff once directed his own film about mercenaries in Africa entitled "Dark of the Sun," which has the distinction of being the first film to feature a character using a chainsaw as a weapon, predating "The Wizard of Gore," "Last House on the Left" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

The Dogs of War was a techs and specs special ops novel by Frederick Forsyth before it was adapted into this film starring Christopher Walken.The adapting screenwriters made an interesting choice to depart from the book in one central way. The focus of the book is on a group strike mission to a fictional African dictatorship. This film is instead focused on the protagonist, Jamie Shannon's, solo scouting mission that precedes the group assault.Walken plays Shannon, and he is revelatory. A purebred action hero, and while thinner than most action heroes, he, in the tradition of James Coburn, pulls off every bit of the rough and dusty action the role requires. One other choice the production team makes can be off-putting. Tom Berenger is billed as a co-star, but he barely gets on screen. His character is left with almost no development, and no chemistry with Walken, simply owing to his absence from the action. Walken's solo trip to the fictional Zangara is brooding and meditative. It plays like a micro John LeCarre story in the film's sprawling, all-consuming middle. When Walken's Shannon finally assembles his multi-national strike force, a group action romp in the tradition of The Great Escape or Force 10 From Navarrone begins to build, but again, the director and producer leave all too little time for what the viewer expects will be the film's main course. Walken is very good in his role. Cinemaphiles and Walken completists cannot follow his career without study of this performance. The minor paucities in the overall sweep of the movie aside, Walken creates the character of mercenary Jamie Shannon in a way that Forsyth's book never gets around to doing--so busy is it with measuring ship cargo space and counting grenade pins.

The "dogs of war" (this phrase takes its literary origins from William Shakespeare) is an exciting as well as interesting action/war film . It concerns a military coup in an African country and stars Christopher Walken and Tom Berenger , though he has said in interviews that around half of his role was omitted from the final release print . It deals with mercenary James Shannon (Christopher Walken) , on a reconnaissance job to the African nation of Zangaro, is tortured and deported . He returns to lead a coup and tangles with an Idi Amin-alike dictator. As various soldiers of fortune (Tom Berenger , Paul Freeman , among others) , used to be the best of friends give a toast : ¨Long live death, long live war, long live the cursed mercenary" (this is an adaptation of the original Foreign legion toast) and all of them battle side by side in hellhole Africa .This war film packs adventures , large-scale blow-up , thrilling plot , and lots of action for the most part , but also contains too much dialogue . It's a good mix of action-packed , adventure , thriller and warfare genre . Overly somber rendition based on Frederick Forsyth's novel , in fact , while researching the novel in the early 1970s, author pretended he was actually financing a coup d'etat in Equatorial Guinea , the pretense allowed Forsyth access to a number of underworld figures, including mercenaries and arms dealers ; Forsyth has since commented that the arms dealers were the most frightening people he has ever met . Frederick is a famous author best-sellers whose novels have been successfully adapted to cinema and TV such as ¨The day of Jackal¨, ¨Odessa¨ and ¨The fourth protocol¨ . Fine support cast who realize professionally competent interpretations , some of them with no more than a line or two to say such as Colin Blakely , Paul Freeman , and brief interventions from JoBeth Williams , Robert Urquhart , Ed O'Neill , Jim Broadbent , Jean Pierre Kalfon , Victoria Tennant , Pedro Armendariz Jr and first cinema film of David Schofield.Good cinematography by Jack Cardiff , who also shot a movie about mercenaries in Africa titled ¨The mercenaries¨, it was filmed on location , as African and Central America sequences were filmed in Belize City, Belize in Central America . The motion picture was well directed by John Irvin , though it was originally going to be directed by Norman Jewison. John had previously filmed amidst real life battles when he worked in a television news crew in Vietnam during the 1960s. Irvin once said: "Unlike most young film directors, I've been in battle. Throughout the sixties I went to various war zones and I met numerous mercenaries in Algeria and South East Asia, so I had my own personal strings to draw on. I would say our depiction of mercenaries is pretty accurate. We talked to a lot of mercenaries and were able to get a lot of information from them about how they would have handled the operation". As the movie's major battle sequence was directed by director John Irvin and not the Second Unit Director . Rating : Nice picture , better than average . Worthwhile watching .

James Shannon is an American mercenary hired by a mining concern to perform a reconnaissance mission in the fictional West African nation of Zangaro; his task is to determine whether or not it would be possible to depose its current president, a psychotic megalomaniac called General Kimba. He goes in posing as a wildlife photographer and learns a little bit about the countries history; after gaining independence from Britain there were three candidates for president; General Kimba, the now exiled Colonel Bobi and the now gaoled Dr. Okoye. It isn't long before he comes to the attention of the authorities and soon after that he is severely beaten before being deported.Back in the Unites States he is approached once again; this time they want him to put together a mercenary force; return to Zangaro and overthrow Kimba so somebody more biddable can be installed in the presidential palace. Shannon sets about recruiting mercenaries before heading to London and arranging to get all the equipment they will need on the mission. He also learns who the new president is to be; Colonel Bobi; a man motivated solely by greed who is unlikely to be any better for the people of Zangaro than Kimba. Once everything is arranged they take a freighter to Zangaro and storm the barracks in the capital where Kimba resides and once he is dealt with they wait for Col, Bobi to arrive; but when he gets there he will be in for a surprise.This is a solid mercenary action film that should please fans of the genre. The final action sequence is both exciting and spectacular but that isn't the real meat of the film. The thing that makes this film interesting is the way it focuses on the preparations. The reconnaissance section was almost as exciting as the finale as Shannon was alone and unarmed in a very dangerous place; where any mistake could, and nearly did, get him killed. The preparations were interesting as we see the team discussing what equipment they will need and haggling to acquire it at the lowest price to maximise their profit. Christopher Walken puts in a good performance as Shannon and the rest of the cast are decent enough if not exactly spectacular. The action is well directed and it looks good although some scenes felt rushed... although I fear that is because I saw the shorter version of the film and I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't some 'cuts for television' as well so I can't really hold that against the film! If you like films such as 'The Wild Geese' I'm sure you will enjoy this too; it is well worth watching even in its abridged form.