Only a year later Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch would be declared the most violent film produced by a major studio, but Dark of the Sun beat it to the punch.ĭon’t mistake this for some seedy exploitation movie wallowing in gore and human suffering. Audiences in 1968 watched Dark of the Sun in slack jawed horror, until mass condemnation by movie critics forced MGM to shelve it. But you might be shocked by this film’s chainsaw battles, graphic torture, child murders and gang rape of both men and women. If you’re anticipating the kind of testosterone fueled action of Tarantino’s other military favorite The Inglorious Bastards (1978) you won’t be disappointed. Gritty would be a gross understatement in describing this 1968 war film that Martin Scorsese and Quinten Tarantino have called their top guilty pleasures. But, back in 1968, Dark of the Sun actually nailed that grim world.ĭark of the Sun isn’t a horror film per say, nor is it a slam bang action funfest-it’s something else entirely. These action epics failed to capture the violent, seedy world of soldiers for hire. Forty years later we have The Expendables series, featuring a crack team of over the hill, human growth hormone sodden commandos. The first mega hit mercenary film was 1978’s The Wild Geese, starring Richard Burton and Richard Harris as a crack team of hilariously over the hill, booze sodden commandos. Mercenaries may be a fascinating topic, but they haven’t gotten much quality screen time. The rescue mission takes them through a hellscape of atrocities, firefights and human greed. Heinlein (Peter Carsten), an unrepentant ex-Nazi who still proudly wears his swastika. Along with his trusted aid Ruffo (Jim Brown) he’s forced to enlist Lt. On paper he’s going there to rescue the citizens, but his real mission is to retrieve millions in diamonds before they fall into rebel hands. American mercenary Bruce Curry (Rod Taylor) is ordered to take a train load of Congolese soldiers to an isolated town before its overrun by the rebels. The Congo is deep in the throes of the post-colonial Simba Rebellion.
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