Saturday, February 09, 2008

Movie review - "The Hell with Heroes" (1968) **

A disappointing film about fliers in post WW2 Africa. Claudia Cardinale is incredibly sexy and the setting of is an exciting one, but the film never gels. Rod Taylor’s on screen relationship with Pete Duel feels like a poor retread of the one he had with Jim Brown in Dark of the Sun and the fact that his character decides not to kill the baddie when he has the chance thirty minutes before the end of the film makes the last act feel like an anti-climax.

Rod should have been a natural in his role, and he is occasionally, but his performance is patchy and over-the-top in places (for instance on hearing Duel’s death he becomes excessively weepy). The war flashbacks using tinted stock do not work, either. Considering the cast and the subject matter, the film is an opportunity missed.

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