Movie Review: The Dogs of War (1980: United Artists/MGM/Twilight Time)

...ah, mercenaries...ya' gotta love 'em, right?? Heroes unto themselves, in the sense that...much like bounty hunters...they act and behave of their own accord, and get the job done via unconventional and unorthodox means, when those who subscribe to the lawfully established and so-called acceptable 'rules of the game', have failed. Driven by their own self-serving agenda...the culmination, be that of heartful heroics, thrill-seeking recklessness and/or monetary gain...and yet, wholly honor-bound and dedicated to the cause, in which they were hired to taken on. Confident, albeit arrogant in their ability to persevere, and yet...considering the unpredictability of the vocation...quite well aware that the next mission laid before them, might well be their last. As such, lovingly embracing a death wish, so to speak...but hey, at least there's a paycheck in it, should one survive, to fight yet another day...

...good grief!! 'Heroes', nothing...this viewer pretty much just defined the classic 'anti-hero', right??...

Movie Review: Salvador (1986; Hemdale/MGM/UA/Twilight Time)

...ya' know?? It's often quite interesting and intriguing, the evolution of a filmmaker. The inaugural hits...the initial misses...and that marked milestone of a film, which carries said filmmaker to greater heights, even to the point where, for good or for bad, whatever comes after, is still quite anticipated and well-received by viewing critics and audiences alike. For most, one's introduction to a specific filmmaker is typically something wrought well-after that aforementioned milestone, and after having been privy of latter, higher-profile work, curiosity prescribes...even sometimes demands one to back-pedal to that now-renowned and revered filmmaker's earlier work...

...cutting to the chase, let's just throw the name out there, 'kay?? Ready, go...Director Oliver Stone. Bam!! Right away, what comes to most folks' minds are the high-profile films of keen political rhetorics, observations and engagements, whether such things are observed and/or depicted in the exploitative media ("Natural Born Killers"), in a war-torn battleground ("Platoon", amongst others), in the high-rise financial arena (...can you say, "Wall Street"), on the grassy football gridiron (...a la, "Any Given Sunday"), or heck, even in the obvious of politically-driven locales...namely Washington, D.C., itself (..."JFK", "Nixon", "W.", etc.), Of course, there are those moments of filmmaking escapism...for lack of a better word...'breaks' in the political rhetorie, so to speak, as director Stone etches out the smaller, eclectic, more character driven stories (...of course, we're talking "Talk Radio", "U-Turn", "Savages"...the