The execrable THE A-TEAM got you down? Wanna watch a decent ‘men on a mission movie’? Then I recommend the solid solid solid 1966 oater THE PROFESSIONALS now on Netflix’s Watch Instantly. I’m talkin’ Robert Ryan, Woody Strode, Burt Lancaster and Lee Marvin. That’s right. The villain? Jack Palance.
C’mon.
Can you do better than that? Can you?
I’ll get into the understated wonderfulness of THE PROFESSIONALS in this week’s Member Bonus Show in which Gareth and I will also discuss other ‘men on a mission’ movies such as THE DIRTY DOZEN and GENTLEMEN BRONCOS, (not to mention THE A-TEAM on our regular show…sigh).
[Image above - From THE PROFESSIONALS: Burt Lancaster gives comfort to the irrepressible, and just shot, Marie Gomez]
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I just watched this movie for the first time a few months ago. It truly is amazing. I love Lancaster's comments about killing men and horses…One of my favorite quotes.
Great spare script with mediations on values, revolution, morality etc.
Yes – men on a mission. I love the women in this one too. What a cast. A special shout out to Claudia Cardinale and (even louder) Marie Gomez, both of whom more than held their own exactly in tune with this movie's tone.
Okay I really liked the music here too. And Lancaster's endorsement of Big Bang cosmology. AND the Jesus comment on Revolution (Jack Palance as Jesus – love the association!) which still tingles as I carry it with me, and quote:
La RevoluciÛn is like a great love affair. In the beginning, she is a goddess. A holy cause. But… every love affair has a terrible enemy: time. We see her as she is. La RevoluciÛn is not a goddess but a whore. She was never pure, never saintly, never perfect. And we run away, find another lover, another cause. Quick, sordid affairs. Lust, but no love. Passion, but no compassion. Without love, without a cause, we are… *nothing*! We stay because we believe. We leave because we are disillusioned. We come back because we are lost. We die because we are committed.
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So, I have a confession. The A-Team. I loved it. I was required to see it to write a review and I was dreading it. I KNEW it was going to be terrible. But, I loved it. I hate the Fast & Furious films and the Transformers films and everything of that violence-loving, wish-fulfillment, explosion-fest ilk. But The A-team was different for me. It wasn't just ridiculous. It was impossibly, unimaginably, mind-blowingly absurd. That's when I realized that The A-team isn't an action movie at all. It's a comedy. All it wants is laughs. And it got plenty from me. Loved it.
I hear ya – other folks have said the same to me re: comedy – I'm sure we'll go into detail why the film didn't work for us as a comedy or an action film, (i had big probs with the politics, the amount of money, the casting and the storytelling – but other than that it was fine! ;)
My best “men on a mission” movie is Cheung Fo also known as (wait for it) The Mission. It's just a great piece of Hong Kong … hmmmm… suspense action? It's a bit slow for the short attention span crowd but it has characters, who have issues, which form a story. What a novel concept.
Another outstanding men-on-a-mission film: Von Ryan Express, despite having Sinatra in the lead role.
I completely agree the politics of it are pretty dreadful, B.A. Baracus was terrible, and they could have made 100 interesting, though-provoking small films with their humongous budget, but there's just something about it that charmed me.
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