Great movie combined with great actors, story and actions..., April 5 2004

By	lordhoot "lordhoot" (Anchorage, Alaska USA) - See all my reviews

There might be one stick that get stuck in many people's throats and that is that Sean Connery plays a very honorable man of Islam. When his character stated that Raisuli don't make war on women and children, he sounded bit insulted that a true warrior of Islam might be considered to scooped so low. A true patriot in his own eyes, Connery's portrayal of an Islamic leader run contarary to what many Americans see today, especially after 9-11 and many Islamic terrorist attacks directed at women and children. (I was told that this movie is quite popular in Islamic nations for Connery's portrayal of a true and honorable warrior of Islam.)

The DVD of this movie proves to be a must-buy for me. Its in anamorphic widescreen and at least for my basic TV, it looked very good. The audio is in 5.1 DD but its not very active as you hope to be. Still the sounds are pretty clear and background material are separated nicely. There are your director's commentary and making of the movie feature included but that is all from the extra feature department.

Considering that this movie was made in mid-1970s when America's power was ebbing after the Vietnam War and we were in an "anti-pro-active" stage, this story of Berber chieftain kidnapping an American woman and her children which generated a pure imperialistic response from the United States, must have been a rarity to hit the screens at that period.

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The DVD ruined the best scene, Jul 13 2004

"LOOSELY" based on a historical incident, it remains relevant even in today's world. The contrast between a slumbering but decisive America that is willing to negotiate to a point, but go it alone if it must to protect it's citizens, versus a self-absorbed charismatic leader who uses religion to justify his own desires for power and place. Sound familiar?

Based on the above, I'd give the movie itself a weak 4 star rating, but the DVD fumbles.

The pinheads in charge of subtitling this better than average film managed to screw up one of the finest depictions of 1900's era small unit actions in the history of cinema. This piece of film is (or was until recently) used in the training of US Marine Corps officers. They obviously used historical and technical experts to get the movie right, why couldn't they have talked to even an ROTC cadet to make sure that the command verbage in the subtitles was correct? Very shoddy, and unfortunately it is becoming typical of the level of quality in the DVD market. A minor point for most, but a notable and easily avoidable flaw.

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