The Dogs of War (1981) United Artists/Action RT: 119 minutes Rated R (language, strong violence including torture) Director: John Irvin Screenplay: Gary DeVore and George Malko Music: Geoffrey Burgon Cinematography: Jack Cardiff Release date: February 13, 1981 (US) Cast: Christopher Walken, Tom Berenger, Colin Blakely, Hugh Millais, Paul Freeman, Jean Francois Stevenin, Robert Urquhart, Maggie Scott, Winston Ntshona, Kelvin Thomas, JoBeth Williams, Ed O’Neill. Box Office: $5.4M (US)
Rating: ****
The Dogs of War is that rare breed of action movie that has more on its mind than shooting and blowing stuff up. While it features plenty of both, it also delves into the private life of its hero. His name is Jamie Shannon. He’s a mercenary. When he’s not off fighting somebody else’s war in some God forsaken part of the world, he leads a bleak existence. He lives alone in a depressing apartment in New York. The TV is always on; presumably, so he feels less alone. He’s godfather to a baby whose mother asks him to never come around. His only friend is a young African-American boy whose name he doesn’t even know. According to his doctor, he’s taken several years off the back end of his life due to the many injuries and diseases he sustained due to his profession. When you think about it, Shannon has nothing to lose putting his life on the line as a soldier-for-hire.
Shannon, played to perfection by Christopher Walken (The Deer Hunter), is visited by British businessman Endean (Millais, Images) with a business proposal. He wants Shannon to go on a reconnaissance mission to the small fictional African country of Zangaro. He has interests there and wants information regarding the stability of the government under the current leader, brutal dictator General Kimba. Is there any chance of a coup? Posing as a photographer for a nature magazine, Shannon goes looking around Zangaro, immediately attracting the attention of the local police. He’s subsequently arrested, beaten and tortured before being deported back to America.
After a period of contemplating retirement, during which he tries to patch things up with his ex-wife Jessie (Williams, Poltergeist), he decides to accept an offer from Endean to return to Zangaro and forcibly remove Kimba from power. The businessman intends to replace Kimba with a puppet ruler willing to cut a deal with his company. Shannon assembles his team- Drew (Berenger, The Big Chill), Derek (Freeman, Raiders of the Lost Ark) and Michel (Stevenin, Victory)- for one last mission.
Interesting characters show up throughout The Dogs of War like BBC reporter North (Blakely, A Man for All Seasons) filming a documentary in Zangaro, Gabrielle (Scott), a beautiful woman hired to show Shannon around and Dr. Okoye (Ntshona, The Wild Geese), a former political opponent of Kimba’s who’s been imprisoned since the general came into power. They factor into the plot in ways I won’t reveal here.
What separates The Dogs of War from other macho actioners with their monosyllabic heroes is Shannon. Here’s a man who’s clearly intelligent. He’s not just a mindless killing machine capable of taking down an entire enemy army single-handedly. He has depth and dimension. There’s a lot going on beneath the surface. If only the movie let us in on it. It shows us his life without telling us what he’s thinking at any given moment. Why does he do what he does? Is he motivated by a moral code or just money? The questions remain unanswered. However, I think the movie’s refusal to allow us to gain a better understanding of Shannon is intentional. His line of work requires secrecy. He’s used to keeping things close to the chest. By opening up to somebody, he’d be betraying the central rule of his profession. It’s a tricky character to write and only an actor of Walken’s caliber could pull it off.
Walken delivers one of his finest performances in The Dogs of War even though it’s a bit strange seeing him play the hero instead of the unhinged villain. His Jamie Shannon is a smart, careful man who meticulously plans every step of his mission. The scenes of him and his men wheeling and dealing with shady types for weapons, ammo and passage into Zangaro are as compelling as the action-packed climax is exciting. Shannon’s team, along with a group of Zangaron exiles trained as soldiers, sneak in under the cover of darkness to carry out their mission. It’s a solid pay-off.
Based on the best-selling novel by Frederick Forsyth, The Dogs of War is the type of action movie that rarely gets made anymore. The writers assume intelligence on the part of the audience by giving them a complex (but not convoluted) plot involving international politics and corporate greed. Director John Irvin (Raw Deal), for the most part, keeps it moving along at a decent clip without sacrificing plot development. True, it’s somewhat lacking in character development but it makes sense in context. We’re talking about macho soldiers-for-hire in ’81. They’re men of action not words. The closest we get to knowing somebody other than Shannon is Drew who we learn has a wife and baby (Shannon’s aforementioned godchild).
Over the past 40 years, The Dogs of War has gotten lost amongst all the mindless action flicks, but it’s one worth rediscovering. It’s intelligently written, smartly directed and convincingly acted especially by Walken. It has a few cool scenes like when the guys test their weapons en route to Zangaro. That grenade launcher is a beautifully bad ass piece of weaponry. I hope it’s not too sexist to say The Dogs of War is a total guy’s movie. My dad took me to see it when I was 13. I noticed there weren’t ANY women in the audience. With only two significant female characters, I can see why they were all in the adjacent theater watching Ordinary People.
