Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

georgewilliamnoble This is a film that has escaped my attention for the best part of 50 years. Until i met this film on budget DVD. Based around the famed British elite desert force of World War 2 the LRDG Long Range Desert Group the early forerunner to the SAS. The original special force. And set during the Monty Vs Rommel battles of late 1943. Here history stops and the films Counter Culture, Vietnam era, Anti Establishment, Anti heroism, Anti War, remember the "Ban the Bomb" protests & the late seventies swing to all things on the political LEFT! Drop out, Doped up and swinging on to free love time? Well i do, and well.From this historic era PLAY DIRTY was made. Yet, the film disguises its populist sentiments more or less until 60 seconds from the end, when BANG! - Boy did i not see that coming. Very well made despite a troubled production history, the original director and top star both dropped out at the last moment and a novice director then took over. The superb production values are excellent with authentic arms, uniforms and vehicles, the film is top from almost every aspect apart from the awful depiction of all things British Army. Rather insulting in reality to view through today's eyes. None the less this is a secret classic war film and classic ERA film it could OH SO, only of been made in 1969.Well worth a look, for lovers of the films from the 60's and even WW2 gender fans.

MartinHafer In many ways, "Play Dirty" is like taking "The Dirty Dozen" and merging it with the director's cut of "Lawrence of Arabia". The film is about a group of cutthroats and criminals who are on a mission behind enemy lines AND it has TONS and TONS of long and dry (no pun intended) desert scenes where very little is happening. Considering that these two other films were made before "Play Dirty" and are much better films, then you can guess some of my feelings about the film.The film begins with an officer and petroleum expert (Michael Caine) being forced to go on a crazy mission behind enemy lines in North Africa to destroy fuel depots during WWII. I say crazy because the other officer he'll be serving with is a real rogue--and was let out of prison for the mission. This guy has a group of equally nasty rogues who are all experts at playing dirty and NOT abiding by the rules of warfare and this includes dressing up as Italian soldiers.Too much of the film is spent on the team's trek across the desert...way too much. It makes for a terribly paced film and it only improves later in the film when they FINALLY make it to their objective. Additionally, unlike "The Dirty Dozen", most of the rogues (with the exception of their leader, played by Nigel Davenport) have no real personalities and are nothing like the cast of "The Dirty Dozen". They are just faceless scum. The ending is decent because it is very different--otherwise, I thought the film amazingly dull.Best moment of the film--when Davenport says "I didn't like the tea". Worst moment--when EVERYONE stood near the guy as he disarmed a German booby trap! Why, in the name of all that is holy, didn't they take cover...FAR away from the guy with the pliers disarming the bomb?! And, why didn't anyone tell the two gay guys that the place was booby trapped so they wouldn't blow themselves up?! Also, although it worked out well in the end, there is an attempted rape in the film that is pretty disturbing--particularly for folks in the audience who have themselves been victims, so be forewarned.By the way, if you care, a lot of the equipment in the film is neither German nor Italian. This is no surprise, as little of it survived the war. The German halftrack vehicles, for instance, are American M3 models.

fedor8 The underlying idiocy here is to rip off the premise from "The Dirty Dozen ", which had had huge success just 2 years earlier, but to give the movie some half-baked bleedin'-obvious message about dirty war always being waged on both sides of any conflict. The trouble is, you just can't have it both ways. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't f*rt and keep it inside too. You either make a fairly unrealistic but fun semi-comedy about a bunch of criminals going on a suicide mission OR you use the movie to make some "grand" statement about the inherent ugliness of the decision-making process in the upper army tiers, i.e. some tired old morality tale.For people who consider this movie to be "realistic", I have these five words: "Alice In Wonderland" and "Fantasia" i.e. you have seen them far too often. The LOOK of PD may be realistic; there is no denying the visual quality. The story, however, is anything but.For example, Leach's baffling decision to sabotage Caine's attempt to bring the jeep over the hill. Leach – for whatever unexplained reason – decides to not unload the supplies off the vehicle as Caine had ordered, thereby allowing a perfectly good jeep to be destroyed, plus much of the supplies on it. What the hell was the point of that? Motives, anyone? I'd truly like to hear whatever theories, i.e. any fanciful (desperate) spins, which fans of PD can give me here to justify that dumb nonsensical act. Leach was portrayed as the ultimate survivalist, always looking out for himself first (and Caine second, due to the reward), so it made zero sense for him to diminish the chances of the mission succeeding, thereby also increasing the risks to his own life. This is moronic writing, and has absolutely nothing to do with the alleged "realities of war" that PD supposedly stands for. It was a childish act, perhaps, but that would totally out-of-synch with Leach's rather clear-cut character.Worse yet, that entire sequence lasted for an eternity. Why does the viewer have to watch the boring details that are entailed in transporting a jeep over a hill? That seemed like the kind of padding that is usually found in cheesy 50s/60s B-movies and "arty" Euro-trash films with a thin or non-existent story. (Like those endless climbing sequences in "Lost Continent" or "The Mole People".) PD could have been cut by at least 15-20 minutes - that's how much it drags at times. It's as though the director was so keen on making the most of shooting on location, that he couldn't bring himself to slash some scenes that show the desert in all its cinematic glory. He basically sacrificed the movie's pace in favour of the scenery. But this is isn't supposed to be some slow, meditative flick about existentialism or any other such pretentious twaddle. It's a bloody war film.Caine and Leach, who had been clever up to the point of blowing up the German supplies base, are suddenly reduced to utter retards when they walk straight into an ongoing military operation (Monty's invasion), waving a white flag that is smaller than a hamster's bum. Of course they could get killed by friendly fire! Even a person who knows nothing about the military, wars, or surrender would have figured that it's safer to wait out the invasion, to hide until the invading army is done with their invading, which would have taken no more than another hour (or hours at the most), and THEN "surrender". At the very least they could have taken off their German uniforms: it wasn't anyway as though they were going to freeze in Northern Africa, in the middle of the day, without these clothes. Dumb.

lost-in-limbo After a string of failures, Col. Masters is given one last chance by General Blore with his information taken from behind enemy lines, which involves blowing up a Nazi fuel depot in North Africa. Masters gets a seven-man unit of criminals ready, led by mercenary Captain Leech, but Blore wants a British officer in charge and Captain Douglas with his oil experience gets picked. After they head off, we learn that they're a decoy for another patrol to fulfil the assignment, but this is unknown to them. Leech and Douglas clash over who's in command, but Leech sees Douglas' honoured methods aren't well suited for their situation and lets Douglas string them along, as there's a money reward for him if he returns back with Douglas alive.What hits me straight away is the comparisons to Robert Aldrich's 1967 film "The Dirty Dozen", which gets unfairly lumped onto this feature. Honestly this low-key WW2 British production has some similarities, but it has its own story to tell and it's a real good one too. Andre De Toth's direction is resourcefully efficient and randomly unpredictable in detailing the plight.What George Marton's originally cunning story does, is leave behind all of those slapdash clichés. Looking for something more compact, taut and venomously scathing. It's so open minded, it's hard to tell what's going to occur next and while there might not be much background to these characters. This shows how expendable these men are when at war, but the lack development can be put down to the character themselves. Their here for the present, and they got a job to be done and there's not time for personal insight, because they just don't care. The custom pattern that occurs in a jaggedly slow tempo feels deliberate by trying to get the viewer to experience the rugged path that could lead to their impending doom, before even encountering the enemy. These are the moments when the tension really holds up. Glory and principal is discarded in very cynical fashion, in favour of primal instinct for one self. These are a unlikeable bunch. Exciting entertainment this is not, because it stays pretty level with the film's natural grit, devious intentions and lack of reasoning for the mission. Thrown in are one or two daring and unusual aspects, like the two candidly gay Arabs. The bone-dry script (penned by Melvyn Bragg and Lotte Colin) simply grits its teeth with bitter, ironic and stern dialogues that snaps with tersely realism. You can just see why this wasn't a commercial success (say like Aldrich's war film), and the sourly unrewarding and sudden conclusion is the icing on the cake. I liked this final curve-ball.The harshly barren and dusty terrain depicts the unsparing tone of the film superbly with Edward Scaife's illustratively expressive camera-work skilfully mixing its scenic and upfront shots within the aim of the story's actions. Michael Legrand's understated music score is goes by virtually unnoticed, but this only heightens the tension because there's no real cues. Most of the music comes from a radio playing on the journey. De Toth gustily demonstrates convincing action scenes. They might be quick and few, but when they happen it's chaotic, rough and relentlessly staged with conviction. Just look at the eruption of explosions towards the dying end. His pacing can be off and get rather padded, but he never loses what his trying to say within these scenes and actually they probably add more to wearily sparse tone. Michael Caine and Nigel Davenport do a serviceable job in their parts and the pair's edgily unsure relationship is quite a compelling one. Caine's professionally stout and well-judged performance as Captain Douglas works fine and a slyly hard-boiled performance by Nigel Davenport as the rogue Captain Leech is that of high quality and the pick of the lot. Living it up in minor roles are Nigel Green and arrogantly gusto turn by Harry Andrews. The rest of the support roles pale in the light of the two leads. However they are solid and gritty performances that fit the mould.This one undeservedly gets left in the dark, but this hardy effort is a well made and acted war piece due for rediscovery. Recommended.