Review: Killer Force

Telly Savalas is the security head of a South African diamond mine, with Peter Fonda a man under his employee who doesn’t entirely agree with Savalas’ harsh, no-nonsense methods of safeguarding the mine at all costs. With threat of a gang of mercenaries supposedly intending on robbing the mine, the mining company administrator (Victor Melleney, quite solid) gives Fonda a special task: Steal a diamond, escape the compound, and hopefully bait the mercenaries so as to infiltrate them. Seems simple enough, but that’s appearances for you. Hugh O’Brian leads the mercenaries, with poetry-reading psychopath Christopher Lee, cockney Ian Yule, and African-American O.J. Simpson playing the other mercenaries. Maud Adams plays Fonda’s main squeeze.

 

A fine cast and a terrific premise are badly treated in this watchable but extremely clunky, cheap 1976 crime flick from veteran journeyman director Val Guest (“The Quatermass Xperiment”, “Hell is a City”) and his co-writers Michael Winder (“The Beast Must Die”) and Gerald Sanford (a lot of TV work). The big problem here is one of narrative coherence, or lack thereof, with Guest seeming more at home filming the rather good action finale than any of the set-up. The group of mercenaries in particular are undeveloped and incoherently introduced into the story. It takes a while for you to get your bearings and figure out who the hell they even are. The shame is that they’re the most interesting characters here, underdeveloped or not. I also don’t think the script bears much to close scrutiny, either. It hangs on a pretty big contrivance, for instance and makes certain characters seem incredibly unintelligent when they shouldn’t be.

 

The biggest pull here for audiences is the casting of three Bond alum in Telly Savalas, Christopher Lee, and Maud Adams, though our leading man is Peter Fonda. His casting alone probably tells you this is hardly A-grade stuff  Fonda is better known for his presence in a bunch of cool 60s films and having famous relatives rather than any great acting talent. He’s certainly no equal to his sister or dad in that department, but he can be used effectively on occasion. Sporting a not very cool perm and shaggy beard, he’s actually perfectly fine here, if not especially dynamic. In fact, aside from leading lady Maud Adams and non-actor O.J. Simpson (O.J. playing a professional killer years before he…y’know. Allegedly of course), the well-known names here are all fine. Hell, even the normally dull Adams is a bit better than usual, and O.J. spends much of the film on the sidelines anyway. O.J. never really hit his stride in movies until “The Naked Gun!” if you ask me. Christopher Lee fares best in a fascinatingly creepy blend of gentlemanly and psychopathic as one of the elite killers here. He’s not in the film nearly enough, but he really livens the thing up. Next best, but sadly in the film even less, is character actor/former British paratrooper (and former mercenary, for that matter) Ian Yule, with a cockney accent as another of the guys performing the heist. The long-time South African resident is terrific when on screen. Telly Savalas doesn’t stretch himself here as the ruthless mine security head, but is a rock-solid presence nonetheless. As good as he is, he’s probably upstaged by his cool shades, but that’s because those shades are so damn cool. Hugh O’Brian is pretty good too as the all-business mercenary, though smoking a pipe he’s a lot less cool than Savalas. His lack of patience for anyone else’s shit kept me amused throughout.

 

Away from the acting side of things, we also get a funky-as-fuck soul music score by Georges Gavarentz (“The Corrupt Ones”, “Triple Cross”). I’m not sure it entirely belongs in this film, but why complain about a good thing? It’s so good, you’d swear it was the work of Lalo Schifrin (“Cool Hand Luke”, “Bullitt”) or Bill Conti (“Rocky”). The Seth Effriken scenery is well-captured by cinematographer David Millin (“The Jackals”, a western with Vincent Price), a native South African director and cinematographer.

 

This could’ve been really good, if done with care. The cast are there, the interestingly shady characters are there, the premise is there. Unfortunately it’s been shockingly edited, Guest is off his game in the director’s chair and the script is a mess. It’s alternately slow and rushed, confusing yet predictable. It wants to be “The Wild Geese” of diamond heist movies, but it’s all over the shop in execution. There are solid moments however, especially whenever Christopher Lee is on screen.

 

Rating: C+