Power Play

I find this movie quite interesting, I saw this movie in the Philippines during the height of the 1986 revolution in the Phil. I liked the way Peter O Toole played the character of a cunning officer. The treachery of the power grabbers was for real. Other cast and characters of the movie are good to their respective roles. I could not believe the setting was in Canada. I thought it was in Latin America. I recommend this movie to all countries with unstable political system. There's a lot of lesson you could learn from this movie. Its a warning to military adventurism and to those who wants to grab power unconstitutionally. I want to own a DVD copy of this movie. Where could I find it?

"For a coup to be successful you need tanks. My tanks" declares tank commander Peter O'Toole to idealistic young army officer David Hemmings in this engrossing military drama reminiscent of Bunuel's 'La Fievre Monte a El Pao' and Jancso's 'The Red and the White' with a wonderful punch line as he demonstrates to Hemmings that power comes down the barrel of a gun and you never know who's next for the firing squad.

In this no doubt peculiar film that has a rather dated patina and production values that wouldn't bear scrutiny in today's world of slick multimillion endeavours however drove away at me and ended up surprising my, admittedly reduced expectations. There's a professional cast pulling out the stops to keep it going, and the way the story ended up left quite a visceral punch - even though the screenplay rather gives it away in the opening sequence in a chat show reminiscence by a witness, back in the real world, ie New York.

I like odd movies like this for the curveballs they can throw like the really confusing setting imagined for this country in convulsions. Where somewhere in Eastern Europe do all the military speak in rich English accents or American drawl and the character names seem so anglo-saxon? Where are there big sea freighters unloading British rail rolling stock? The little bit of folk music might have Balkan origin but where in Yogoslavia do they have so many sand dunes for the tank sequences? The 'terrorists' look like the young German Red Brigade or even Irish lackeys. The bit the few reviews can't fail to pick up is the faintly absurd torture of a young woman with electrodes attached to her nipples dispassionately supervised by the Blofelt-type Donald Pleasance (who is good here).

All the funny external elements are redeemed however I think by the seriousness of the whole thing and the repeated riff on home truths like perfectly understandable duplicity and cyclic violence that all such Coup-d'etat and by implication all revolutions can involve -despite best efforts from even good chaps. O'Tool's speech at the end about change and society is so deeply ironic and scary - be very scared of change old boy - a very British movie indeed.

An unnamed country is suffering at the hands of a corrupt government so a group of idealistic army officers and intellectuals attempt to stage a coup with the idea of reforming their nation. But who can they trust, is there a Judas in their midst?

A great idea, a great cast and great detail into how to stage a coup d'etat and yet the film just lacks that little bit to make it truly memorable. The production looks a little flat, the pace lags and it's narrative is a little fractured. It comes across as a vaguely interesting tv movie not helped by the fact that it should have been set in either Africa, South America or Eastern Europe because the locations just scream "Canada!" at you and why would they be staging a coup? Still, enjoy Peter O'Toole, David Hemmings, Donald Pleasance and Barry Morse together.

Disgusted at the behaviour of his corrupt government, Colonel Narriman (Hemings) agrees to lead a Coup D'Etat. The films follows the planning and delivery of the Coup with associated twists and turns.

An intriguing film, charting the thinking and action required to complete a Coup. Hemmings is really good in the lead with fine support from Morse as a moral driving force, Pleasence as the dreaded head of Security and O'Toole, in a supporting role as one of the key soldiers involved. There are issues however. It is rather dull to look at, the pace varies considerably, it clearly needed a bigger budget and towards the end looks cheap and the direction overall is flat and unimaginative. Worth catching though, it's different, well acted and definitely provides food for thought.