Watched a programme ( on BBC 2) about machismo heroes on the broadcast media and Who Dares Wins as one of the British films ever made the presenter made a funny quip about the film always divided British critis who hate and who really hated a lot.
shareWTF did the critics know, too busy banging on about naff Daved Lean movies... thanks to these clowns the British film industry went down the crapper in the mid 80s.
shareI went to see this film in 1982 when it hit the cinemas. I thoroughly enjoyed it then and, although I don't own it on video or DVD, I always make a point of watching it whenever it's shown on TV. In fact, it was on Film 4 last Sunday night - and, yes, I stayed up to watch it. Some of its anti-CND ideology looks a bit dodgy now (probably did then), but I still enjoy watching what is basically a very entertaining and well made British action film. Lewis Collins was a great leading man and this should have propelled him to even better things. I'm sure there are hundreds of films out there that are more worthy of being amongst the worst British films of all time.
Having said all that, has anyone noticed (or realised) how unneccessary the elaborate explosive break-in at Skellern's Mews house is? Surely it would have been quicker and safer to have just burst in through the front door and gunned down the terrorists? But, okay, it wouldn't have looked so good...
no, going through would not have worked as well as the explosive entry, if your wall just blew up, it would take you a few seconds to realize what the hell was going on and a few more to react to it
shareYeah, good point. I guess the disorientating affects of the living room wall suddenly exploding inwards cannot be underestimated as it's not the kind of thing that happens every day! I was just thinking that they might have risked being heard in advance, with all the dismantling of the wall, etc... Plus with tensions rising in the hostage house, things could have got out of hand before they had the chance to get in. And how dangerous would it have been for the hostages, especially the baby, to have had bricks and mortar flying around in such a confined space? I would have thought that kicking the front door in would have been a simple and immediate alternative and the shock value wouldn't have been much less. If a couple of guys dressed in black and holding guns suddenly kicked in my front door, I don't think there's a cat in hell's chance that I could react quick enough to avoid the inevitable! Still, the SAS obviously knew/know what they are doing and I wouldn't presume to argue!
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Worst British film ever? Give over! Have they never seen any Michael Winner films?!!?!??!?!?!?
"What are you, some kind of doomsday machine, boy?"
I think it's all about disorientation and suprise. If you hammer the door down, you've got to really hammer it down. As I understand, it's liable to dangle by its hinges and apparently the SAS favour taking off both hinges with a solid-bore shotgun (thanks for the info, Mr Forsyth!). Nonetheless, the door may dangle.
Plus, you've got to be outside the door setting it all up, you'll make a noise and the door's the place they'll be watching, if they've any sense. If you cut the power and they hear a bang, they'll odds-on shoot blindly at the doorway.
Coming through the wall in the dark totally disorientated them. The small explosion to knock the plaster in give less debris in the way of a clear shot.
Plus, it didn't half look bleedin' cool when I saw it on the big screen! And since it was like a big episode of The Professionals, we could keep that going by pretending it was Doyle in the SAS gear, looking after Bodie's missus.
I`ve always enjoyed it and shame we`ve never had a decent widescreen dvd.
shareAlthough it was a cinema feature, it was actually filmed full frame 4:3, so the current DVD is actually providing you with the full image. If you look at many of the scenes, there is a great deal of excess headroom, which was left so the film could be cropped down to 1.85:1 for cinema exhibition.
Anyone who has a widescreen television can test this by putting it in the zoom mode and seeing just how neatly the framing fits.
True, but the camera operator would have composed for a 1:85:1 image. So when you watch it 4.3 the composition of what the film makers wanted you to see has been lost.
shareSeen far worse films. Yeah some of the dialogue is cheesy but the action scenes are spot on and the SAS storming the building at the end is superb. Not a great movie by any means but its not that bad a film.
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Gordon P. Clarkson
I suspect that is mainly the Left-Wing bias of most British critics who seem unable to accept that a film might express a view other than their own.It is by no means the worst British Film ever, although of course,it is a long way from being the best too.It is actually very entertaining,it's weakness lies in the script rather than the Direction or performances most of which as usual for a British film,are excellent.
what? i thought the movie was good.
maybe a little too much of a propoganda film (as in the raid mission was too perfect obviously, no good guys died, every bad guy died)
but the movie was descent.
what do you mean the british film industry went down the tubes? i ask cause i dont know much about british films. i have seen alot i like, probably more good than bad, but i assume thats beacuse the bad ones are aired in the states, only the best of them?
examples?
thanks
If you want examples there's quite a few from the mid 1980s produced by channel 4 films , often prentious art house crap
A Zed And Two Noughts
The Last Of England
Shadey
Another Country
The Garden
And a few other films I can't remember . Then when we had the Brit film boom in the late 1990s we saw an avalanche of absolute rubbish like
Mad Cows
The Life Of Stuff
The Wedding Tackle
This Filthy Earth
Honest
It Was An Accident
The Final Curtain
and many more films I've forgotten about
Critics talk such s**t, i actually own this on DVD, it came through on one of those 4 crappy films on one dvd that you get with a DVD player.
I'd rate who dares wins a 7 overall, i thought it was a good film and should have got more applause than it actually did the same with Lewis Collins.
Critics are morons, that why site like this exist, for real movie fans
I agree.Worrying that this film was/is panned by critics as being one of the worst British films. It clearly isn't. I find the film pretty refreshing, probably because it doesn't approach things from the normal left perspective.
shareby babydolphin8 (Fri Dec 29 2006 04:13:37)
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Watched a programme ( on BBC 2) about machismo heroes on the broadcast media and Who Dares Wins as one of the British films ever made the presenter made a funny quip about the film always divided British critis who hate and who really hated a lot.
I disagree that this gem is the worst film ever made. It's great fun action film with classic lines.
It can't be a bad film if Ronald Reagan, even Stanley Kubrick, Steven Speilberg and Robert Zimeckis all like it. Both Speilberg and Zimeckis given the director Ian Sharp the job of 2nd Unit Director on their film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Worst British film ever??
Give me a break! I am an American who is a father, a Liberal and a Combat Veteran of two armed conflicts...let me tell you about this.
I LOVED it as a kid growing up (Thank you HBO!)
and I just watched it on Netlfix and I still loved. Its direct , hard core and gets right down to buissness with little to no Hollywood fluff.
By the time the raids go down, I was so hooked into the movie I still felt like I was watching this go down live.
An awesome movie and all around fun thriller. Trust me in no way is this the worse film in any country :)
I say way to go Britian...and make more just this :)
It not the Third Man but nowhere near the worst British film ever made. It's a knockabout cheap and cheerful action thriller that Hong Kong used to make in its thousands.
A bit more of this sort of thing could keep Sean Bean, Jason Statham and Ross Kemp very busy indeed.
Don't know who voted for it, but they're obviously the Jarman and Greenaway school of lovers of pretentious bollocks.
Who Dares Wins is unuaual for a British film because it's got a very American feel to it. And we don't usually have the S.A.S as heroes. British films are usually about how misunderstood the I.R.A are. Stand up Ken Loach.
If there had been more British films like this in the 80's we may have had a film industry.
Who Dares Wins isn't perfect and is pretty risible in places, but its entertaining and the S.A.S assault at the end is brilliantly shot. The sequence was apparently even admired by Stanley Kubrick!
"Perhaps he's wondering why someone would SHOOT a man before throwing him out of a plane..."
I thought this film was quite tense and absorbing. The last fifteen minutes with the SAS storming the embassy was expertly done.
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