Figures in a Landscape

R 6.5
1971 1 hr 50 min Action , Thriller

Two escaped convicts are on the run in an unnamed Latin American country. But everywhere they go, they are followed and hounded by a menacing black helicopter.

  • Cast:
    Robert Shaw , Malcolm McDowell , Henry Woolf , Andy Bradford , Warwick Sims , Roger Lloyd Pack , Robert East

Similar titles

Bat★21
Bat★21
Lt. Col. Iceal "Ham" Hambleton is a weapons countermeasures expert and when his aircraft is shot over enemy territory the Air Force very much wants to get him back. Hambleton knows the area he's in is going to be carpet-bombed but a temporary shortage of helicopters causes a delay. Working with an Air Force reconnaissance pilot, Capt. Bartholomew Clark, he maps out an escape route.
Bat★21 1988
Mother's Day
Mother's Day
Three girls discover that two men are willing to do anything to impress Mother and what impresses Mother is watching her sons commit acts of rape and murder. Now these women are prisoners and lowered to pawns in the game of checkers between two dim wits and their Maniac Mommy and the question becomes, can any of them escape, alive?
Mother's Day 1980
Stone
Stone
After one of its members witnesses a political assassination, an outlaw motorbike gang becomes the target of a string of murders, prompting a cop to join their ranks to determine who is responsible.
Stone 1974
WΔZ
WΔZ
There is something horribly wrong with the bodies found in the dark city streets. Some are mutilated while others have the Price equation (wΔz = Cov (w,z) = βwzVz) carved into their flesh. Detective Eddie Argo and his new partner Helen Westcott unearth the meaning of the odd equation and realise each victim is being offered a gruesome choice: kill your loved ones, or be killed. Before long it becomes clear that the perpetrator has suffered a similar fate and is now coping by seeking a way to solve this philosophical dilemma.
WΔZ 2007
Cargo
Cargo
A young backpacker gets into some trouble in Africa and stows away on a cargo ship heading to Europe.
Cargo 2006
Into Pitch Black
Into Pitch Black
After the events of Pitch Black, a contractor is hired to locate Riddick, dead or alive. He reviews available information on him and the events of Pitch Black. Terrified, he hires a female cyberpunk merc to do the job for him.
Into Pitch Black 2000
The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising
The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising
A boy's life is turned upside down when he learns that he is the last of a group of immortal warriors who have dedicated their lives to fighting the forces of the dark.
The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising 2007
The General's Daughter
The General's Daughter
When the body of Army Capt. Elisabeth Campbell is found on a Georgia military base, two investigators, Warrant Officers Paul Brenner and Sara Sunhill, are ordered to solve her murder. What they uncover is anything but clear-cut. Unseemly details emerge about Campbell's life, leading to allegations of a possible military coverup of her death and the involvement of her father, Lt. Gen. Joseph Campbell.
The General's Daughter 1999
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
After saving a Black Panther from some racist cops, a black male prostitute goes on the run from "the man" with the help of the ghetto community and some disillusioned Hells Angels.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song 1971
The Mist
The Mist
After a violent storm, a dense cloud of mist envelops a small Maine town, trapping artist David Drayton and his five-year-old son in a local grocery store with other people. They soon discover that the mist conceals deadly horrors that threaten their lives, and worse, their sanity.
The Mist 2007

Reviews

Matrixiole
1971/07/18

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

... more
Kien Navarro
1971/07/19

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

... more
Quiet Muffin
1971/07/20

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

... more
Deanna
1971/07/21

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

... more
moonspinner55
1971/07/22

Joseph Losey directed this handsome but rather ponderous adaptation of Barry England's book about two British soldiers escaping imprisonment in a Latin America country, doggedly pursued by a helicopter armed with a sniper. Screenwriter and co-star Robert Shaw reportedly completed the final draft of the script while the film was in mid-production (he receives sole on-screen credit). Shaw omits the military backgrounds of the characters, instead making the exhausted, griping men an anonymous duo, which has led some to believe this an existential adventure. It certainly has more aerial and explosive action than any other Losey film (the helicopter stunts are often hair-raising), but the men (Shaw and a young Malcolm McDowell) are angry blanks--and this seems entirely deliberate. The dazzling on-location work in Spain of the three cinematographers, Henri Alekan, Peter Suschitzky and Guy Tabary, is worth-seeing, and the picture's puzzling, downbeat finale is intriguing, but this trek from the jungles to the mountains is mostly an unrewarding journey. ** from ****

... more
bernie-122
1971/07/23

Alternately baffling, shocking and irritating, this film is remarkable in a lot of ways. It shows that Malcolm McDowell is a really talented actor who went to waste after being typecast as a sleazebag; he never got any decent roles after that.What's unusual about this film is that we are never given more than scant information about who these guys are, why they are running and from whom, or where on earth this is all supposed to be taking place.You might think that all this, plus the almost nonexistent plot would make this film supremely forgettable, but this is far from the case. My only complaints were that Robert Shaw's character kept bursting into screaming and cackling fits at inappropriate times and the ending, for me, almost ruined the whole thing. Why did Mac feel he had to try to finish off the helicopter just when he had finally reached safety? Other than that, this is an extraordinary film. I would have given it a 9 except for the above issues.

... more
penfever
1971/07/24

Inspired by the minimalist theater-driven film-making of the period, Figures in a Landscape is much more interesting than its competition (Tomorrow, Losey's own "The Servant). Why? Because of the helicopter, of course!Robert Shaw, always inspired, is here particularly so, all but frothing at the mouth as he drags his weary carcass over the mountains, from nowhere, to nowhere, until the endless desert itself seems more and more like a stage for their mad performance.An inversion of the often static fare of the period that still displays serious acting chops. Recommended.

... more
Raegan Butcher
1971/07/25

FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE is interesting for a lot of reasons: it was directed by Joseph Losey,it stars a very young Malcolm McDowell and it boasts a script by co-star Robert Shaw.The set-up is very existential: 2 men are pursued by a mysterious black helicopter over a rough, desert terrain. We never learn the reasons for any of this or even where it is taking place.The atmosphere of dread is kept at a high level thru-out.Everything about the film is as stripped to the basics as the title suggests. The men are never given much more than the briefest of backgrounds. But it is precisely this quality of mystery that gives the film its main points of interest. I would certainly like to be able to see it on a larger screen. The helicopter photography is very impressive and the shots of the two figures traversing the inhospitable terrain are striking.Robert Shaw gives a ferocious performance. Malcolm McDowell's part requires him to be more subdued but he is capable and provides the film's main sympathetic character.

... more