Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Megamind To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

HotToastyRag Play Dirty is quite possible the worst war movie I've ever seen, and considering I've seen a lot, that's saying something. Unless you like terribly upsetting films that don't seem to serve a purpose, I can't really recommend it.Michael Caine, Nigel Davenport, Nigel Green, and Harry Andrews star in this Desert War film, involving British soldiers, Italian soldiers, North African terrain, and Nazis. There are sneak attacks and plans and supposedly suspenseful scenes, but all of that is overwhelmed by the upsetting violence and treatment of the one female character who inexplicable finds her way into the middle of the soldiers' camp. You can only imagine what atrocities befall her. I'm sure it's a very realistic representation, but it's hardly fitting to be included in a film that's meant to entertain.Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to upsetting violence, I wouldn't let my kids watch it. Also, there may or may not be a rape scene.

Dark Jedi I generally like Michael Cain so when I saw that he was in this movie I became interested enough to watch it yesterday on Cine+ Classic. Well, Michael Cain was making a good performance in it but that was pretty much the only good thing about the movie. It starts of pretty promising but as soon as the actual mission starts it all goes downhill.Both Michael Cain and Nigel Davenport make good performances in the roles they were given. The rest are mostly there to fill up the scenes. The movie blurb makes references to the Dirty Dozen and that is really an insult to that movie. Most of the team are simply incompetent. Leech, the so called export starts of by screwing them into losing one of their trucks as well as a lot of equipment by pure spite and incompetence.Colonel Masters is a snivelling wimp when confronted with his superiors who in turn are career-focused assholes.The two Arabs that are supposed to portray homosexuals are just embarrassing. When everyone else is concentrated on defusing the booby trap these two just wander about stealing things until they trip another booby trap and one of them gets blown up. That was just stupid.Also, why the bloody hell is everyone standing around sweating and why is Captain Douglas keeping his hand on the bloody jack when it is clear that it is a simple mechanical wire to an explosive device and you would have to actually pull at the jack and thus the wire to make it go off. That entire scene was so we-think-the-audience-are-too-stupid-to-notice-that-this-is-crap.The film pretty much continues with such nonsense and then it comes to the end. I cannot say much without introducing a huge spoiler but…what a load of utter crap! After having watched through the entire movie you get this ending as a final insult.The only reason this movie got any stars at all is because of Michael Cain.

glomax-149-262318 What stands out in this film is its noir-like qualities; in so many war-related historical fiction films of the 60s and 70s there are "good guys" and they conquer against amazing odds. Where Eagles Dare, Operation Crossbow and Guns of Navarone are examples. Trobruk is a good exception blurring the lines a bit and bringing a "grit" factor.Play Dirty goes even further showing extreme ruthless and deceit in all directions -- VERY GRITTY. If there was an official War Film Noir genera, this would top my list. The action scenes are fairly limited. This film trades action for plot and character development. It also brings the classic dry dialogue we expect from British made WWII films. Finally, the desert landscape in Panavision is a visual pleasure.I generally like to do historical fiction with the kids but this film has a couple of really tough scenes that you might avoid with younger ones, screen the scenes first.

Jonathon Dabell "Play Dirty" is a brutal, handsomely-photographed WWII film set in the North African desert. The plot invites comparison with the Robert Aldrich classic "The Dirty Dozen", but this film is, I think, the lesser of the two. While the characters here are even more dislikable than those in Aldrich's movie, the pace of "Play Dirty" is sometimes plodding and the film is littered with half-assed ironies, none more so than the cruelly hard-edged ending.A British petroleum trader working in North Africa during the Second World War is unhappily assigned to go on a dangerous mission, despite the fact that he thought his job description protected him from such risky front-line soldiering. The man, a certain Captain Douglas (Michael Caine), is even more displeased when he meets the team with whom he will be travelling. Made up of a gang of hardened thugs, wackos and ex-cons who answer to no-one but their self-styled leader, Captain Leech (Nigel Davenport), the group are as disreputable a bunch as any ever assembled. Their mission involves locating and destroying one of Rommel's fuel depots in the desert, miles behind enemy lines. As they approach the depot, the group find tensions amongst themselves mounting, especially the bickering officers Douglas and Leech. Things take an even uglier turn when the team reach their objective only to learn that they've been double-crossed…..The acting in "Play Dirty" is definitely a strong point. Caine and Davenport bounce off each other perfectly, creating a wholly credible feeling of rivalry and contempt that gradually changes into mutual, if doomed, respect. There are several unconventional factors that set the film apart from others of its type. One is the incredibly cruel and abrupt ending, which has been mentioned already. Another is the way the script populates the film with hideously self-centred and dishonourable characters, some of them quite daring for a 1968 film (the two gay Arabs, for example, who are not standard types for a movie of this genre and era). There are areas where the film loses marks, however. The plodding sections are one such flaw. Another is the fact that too many of the subsidiary characters, regardless of how unconventional they are, are under-developed (in "The Dirty Dozen", say, the lesser roles were just as well-rounded as the main ones). "Play Dirty" is an interesting and fairly original war film, not a classic by any stretch of the imagination but definitely one that you should keep an eye out for.