Sunday Shooty film bonanza!

Another slow day..so i guess that means its fillum time again!.

Today I decided that I was interested in seeing some gunplay, so I cranked out some less well known shooty type films...

The Wild Geese (1978)

Based on the book of the same name, but making some major changes to the plot, this ensemble cast action film tells the story of a group of mercenaries who are contracted by a merchant banker to rescue the deposed president of the fictional central African country of "Zembala" so that he can broker a deal with the much more western friendly ex-president to copper mining rights in the country and make himself even richer.
The mercenaries manage to complete the mission, but find themselves double crossed and abandoned, with the ruling dictators special forces platoon, the "Simbas" hot in pursuit of them, leaving the mercenaries to try and figure out a way to escape.

This film has some big names in for the time it was made, Roger Moore, Richard Burton, Stewart Grainger and Richard Harris being the main ones, and it manages to tell an intelligent story about central african politics whilst living up to its "action-thriller" tagline.
Nonetheless, I liked this film, and recommend giving it a watch.

A sequel "Wild Geese II" was released in 1985, however it starred none of the surviving characters from this film, and had no related plot details, other than it centred on a group of mercenaries hired to compete a difficult mission.

Soldier (1998)

Kurt Russell stars as "Todd", a super soldier who was been trained form birth to know nothing else other than constant warfare. After 40 years of service both on Earth and in space, Todd and his unit of super soldiers are replaced by a unit of genetically modified soldiers.
Todd is seemingly killed when he and a few other men are pitted against the leader of the new soldiers, played by Jason Scott Lee, in order to prove that the new soldiers are best, with his body being dumped on an unnamed planet that the authorities use as a rubbish dump.

Todd awakens to find himself trapped on a world with a small hidden community of colonists whose ship crashed there whilst on its way to a new planet, and he struggles to adapt to a way of life that does not involve him being ordered to kill. Eventually though, his would be murderers return with orders to kill anyone found on the planet, and Todd fulfills his desire for revenge.

A straightforward sci-fi "revenge" type action film, lots of shooting, explosions and mindless violence, but also a very well written story, which is unusual for this type of film.
Kurt Russell does a really good job of playing the emotionless Todd and really shines in the various scenes which show Todd struggling to come to terms with the human condition.

Another film that is well worth a watch.



Mean Guns (1997)

Vincent Moon (Ice-T), a representative of an international crime syndicate invites a motley assortment of hitmen, thugs, punks, pimps, pushers and other ne'er do wells to a meeting held in a new prison which has been built by the syndicate legitimate business arm.
He explains that each person there has betrayed the syndicate in some way, and as such, it has been decided that they will use this opportunity to clean house by having a battle royale within the prison walls, with a prize of $10 million being split three ways between the last three people left standing.
Eventually, they whittle everyone away until they have only 3 people left, and then Moon reveals a twist to the real ending of the game.

This is an extremely silly film, but, oddly enough, its actually somewhat enjoyable. The cartoon-esque gunfights, coupled with the mambo soundtrack give the film a surreal atmosphere, which is upheld by genuinely good bits of dialogue between the people fighting for their lives within the prison walls.
Many of the films plot points are difficult to grasp on the first viewing, but all in all the main characters are very well rounded.
This film is 90 minutes of pure "no brainer" fun, interspersed with big gunfights, worth a watch.