Film Review: The Dogs of War

The Dogs of War (1981)
Director: John Irvin
Principle Actors: Christopher Walken, Tom Berenger

"Central America, 1980." The film opens with a chaotic scene: explosions abound; civilians run scared; military forces do their best to contain the mob; helicopters streak overhead. Amid the unrest, a jeep carrying a half-dozen heavily armed Caucasian men streaks toward a lone airplane in the middle of a grassy field. Among them are Jamie Shannon (Christopher Walken), Drew (Tom Berenger), Terry (Ed O'Neill), Derek (Paul Freeman), and Michel (Jean-Francois Stevenin). If there seemed to be any question about the nationality of these men, the discrepancy is soon resolved when they force their way onto the civilian plane at gunpoint. A gatekeeper, in place by the door, waves the men away, "This plane is for members of the provincial government only!" Jamie’s retort: "Which men do I kill to make room for mine?" Shannon and his crew are mercenaries. They wage war for cash and without regard to the political, economic or social outcomes resulting from their actions. When the job is done, they get the hell out of dodge.

Back home, at his New York City bachelor pad (where a pistol sits next to cans of Budweiser in the fridge), Shannon has little time to unwind before being approached by Endean (Hugh Millais), a representative from a British mining firm. Endean's company is interested in the platinum deposits of Zangaro, a fictitious African country. After a short speech in which he elucidates the finer points of economics, Endean offers Shannon a job: a reconnaissance mission to Zangaro, in order to get a feel for the political climate and gauge whether or not the country's leader, a General Kimba, would be responsive to overtures from the mining company. Shannon agrees.

Posing as a naturalist, on a trip to study birds, Shannon makes his entree into the fictitious capital of Zangaro. His ingress hardly goes unnoticed in a locale where white faces are few and far between, and he is the object of suspicious glances wherever he goes. What he discovers is a political situation that seems so banal by today’s standards that it is almost laughable. General Kimba, a dictator, rose to power by fighting for independence against the colonial government alongside two other prominent men: a Colonel Bobi (George Harris) and a Dr. Okoye (Winston Ntshona). Once the colonial oppressor was vanquished, however, Kimba assumed control, exiling Bobi and subjugating Okoye. He resides in a military garrison and presides over the country with an iron fist, murdering as he pleases to inspire fear among the citizenry. Kimba’s word is law, and it is evident that he would not be welcoming of any Westerners whose efforts might threaten his supremacy. Shannon gets the intelligence he came for, but not before being arrested, savagely beaten, imprisoned, and summarily deported back to the United States.

To this point, the film is quite engaging. Frederick Forsyth, whose novel the film is based on, first made a name for himself with The Day of the Jackal, which follows the machinations of a nameless gunman in his attempt to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. That story was adapted into a 1973 film of the same name, starring Edward Fox, that is every bit as meticulous and suspenseful as the novel; it follows the book explicitly and with extraordinary results. I am not familiar with the Forsyth novel in this case, and thus am not qualified to comment on how well the film adheres to the book. Having read The Day of the Jackal and also The Odessa File, I would say, however, that I am familiar enough with Forsyth to know that something goes strangely wrong in the execution of the second half of the film, which is devoid of Forsythian precision.

Shannon returns to New York still bearing fresh bruises only to be again propositioned by Endean: concerning a coup d’etat, “Could a well-trained, well-equipped mercenary force succeed?” His imprisonment has left him incredibly jaded, and frankly, Shannon wants no part of it. Here is when the story begins to falter.

In a desperate attempt to get out of the game for good, Shannon contacts his former flame Jessie (JoBeth Williams), who, after a quick romp, leaves him, knowing that his promise to leave the run-and-gun way of life behind just isn’t a reality. It’s too little, too late for Jessie and for the viewer. Excepting the film’s final scene, this episode is the only glimpse we are afforded into the personal life of the protagonist. For the rest of the film we see Jamie Shannon as a professional carrying out his task—personal matters simply have no place in the world of international intrigue. Shannon’s rejection is supposed to be a crucial emotional moment, the impetus for his going back to Endean and accepting the job. The scenes are too brief, and they do a poor job of conveying the gravity that this episode is intended to have on Shannon’s psyche and on his humanity.

Rebuffed, Shannon assembles his team—minus Terry, whose wife is apparently a hard case (shades of Al and Peg Bundy?)—and they head to Europe to wheel and deal. Shannon tells his cohorts, “Run hard deals. These guys put up a million dollars, so let’s make sure there’s change cuz I figure we ought to keep it.” They buy up weapons and ammo, and make arrangements to charter a freighter to Zangaro. Before sailing, Shannon meets with Endean and the exiled Colonel Bobi, who plans to reemerge in the capital on the day of the coup. The avaricious Bobi looks to be a man no better than the ruthless Kimba, but unlike his former comrade-in-arms, he is willing to play lap dog to Western businessmen. Shannon leaves with a curt warning: “Don’t be late.”

The scenes in Europe, where the mercenaries are cutting deals with various power brokers should be among the best in the film. In The Day of the Jackal, the assassin’s preparations make up some of the most unforgettable moments of both the novel and film. Here, the preparation scenes are brief and rather unremarkable. In addition, we are afforded absolutely no background information on Drew, Derek, and Michel, Jamie’s fellow soldiers of fortune. Yes, Jamie Shannon is the protagonist, but one would hope that the film would expound on the plurality of canines featured in the title. The trivia section for Dogs on IMDB states that Tom Berenger has said in interviews that half of his role was omitted from the release. This makes sense. His first appearance after the opening scene comes literally out of nowhere, and his few lines consist mainly of threatening remarks and war-whooping. His eventual death (trust me, I’m not ruining anything) is predictable and insignificant. It’s tough to feel for a character one knows nothing about.

The actual military coup in Zangaro takes place in the last ten minutes of the film, with the mercenaries leading two dozen of Colonel Bobi’s former troops in a raid on General Kimba’s military garrison. They rock the garrison with explosions (courtesy of several prominently-featured chrome grenade launchers) and the insurgents unload what seem to be thousands of rounds against a faceless enemy (Kimba’s forces are nowhere to be seen for at least the first five or six minutes of fighting).

The film finishes when Endean and Colonel Bobi find Shannon in the quarters of the deposed—and now deceased—General Kimba. Shannon informs Endean, “You’re late” and introduces Dr. Okoye as Zangaro’s new leader. An enraged Endean insists that the country has been “bought and paid for.” Shannon very naturally waxes Bobi and tells his benefactor, “You’re gonna have to buy it all over again.”

When Shannon shoots Bobi in the final scene, it should be cathartic, but it doesn’t feel that way. In that moment, a man who is supposed to be unfeeling and more importantly, apolitical casts aside his professional modus operandi, and injects his personality into the situation. Why he does this should be clear, but it isn’t. Surely, his imprisonment on the reconnaissance trip, a mission whose risks were known to him, is not sufficient to explain Shannon’s final action. It seems to me that his rejection by Jessie is the explanation, but that episode, as previously stated, is but fleeting. When she refuses his plea to runaway with him, Jessie extinguishes any chance Shannon has of leading a normal life. Waging war is no longer solely his métier, it is all he has to live for. His personal and professional lives merge, and he can no longer function as a disinterested party to the turmoil generated by his exploits. Unfortunately, personal struggle is overshadowed by gun-slinging, and whatever the film seemed to promise in terms of psychological complexity is obscured.

The conclusion is too abrupt. Too much is packed into too little time. The way it is presented, Shannon’s recon trip to Zangaro—which is largely exposition—consumes about half the film’s running time. None of the events which transpire after Shannon’s deportation are afforded proper treatment. This is surprising considering that the film was directed by John Irvin, who, only a year before, directed a flawless adaptation of John Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy for a BBC mini-series. Michael Cimino, the immensely talented but ill-fated director was initially slated to direct Dogs, and had written a script, which apparently underwent much revision when he abandoned the project. It’s tough to imagine that Cimino—as much lauded for his perfectionism as he was criticized for it—would have produced a script that was anything less than impressive. The film might have ended up being four hours, but that would have been to its credit. I suspect that Walken, who had starred in Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (for which he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor) and Heaven’s Gate, originally agreed to the project when the director was attached. Why he stayed on is perhaps as much of a mystery as whatever was lost in the script rewrite, and whatever ended up on the cutting room floor.

The origin of the title is in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “Cry, ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war.” The film is not terrible, but it certainly is not Shakespeare either.

C

Notes: Paul Freeman and George Harris would appear together in Raiders of the Lost Ark the following year, as Belloq and Katanga, respectively. Terence Rigby, who portrayed Roy Bland in Irvin’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy the previous year, appears as Hackett. Jim Broadbent appears as part of a British documentary crew in Zangaro.

Mike Keefe