Flyerplesys Perfectly adorable

BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Justin Easton There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

sol ***SPOILERS*** "Death Wish" like film with the big and as harmless as a Teddy Bear John Kingsdale, George Kennedy, going ballistic when his family is massacred by a gang of international terrorists in their home in Naples Italy. Working for NATO as an electronic expert Kingsdale with the help of his computer expert friend Mike McAllister, John Mills, uses NATO's most state of the art commuter equipment, the ironically named 9/11 computer system, to track down his family's murderers and exact brutal revenge, not justice, on them.Going against his good friend McAllister's advice in letting the law do the job of tracking his family's killers down Kingsdale with an 8% chance, according to he 9/11 computer system, of getting the job done and 92% chance of getting killed in trying goes all out in what seems like a kamikaze like attempt to finish the bloody job that he's about to start. A job that will leave a trail of corpses, terrorists and their victims, that is to end in a bloodbath at the NATO commissary in Naples!Big George Kennedy despite his menacing size seems so out of shape that there's times in many of the movie chase scenes that he looks like he'll collapse from sheer exhaustion in chasing terrorists 100 pounds lighter and 20 years younger then himself. Getting a hold of one of the terrorists leader's the American Taylor, Thomas Hunter, Kennedy or Kingsdale needed a car to catch up with him in that there's no way to convince the audience that he could have done that on his own with just shoe leather! Huffing and puffing his way through the movie where in some scenes it looked like he needed oxygen to stay on his feet the almost out of breath Kingsdale finally gets to the NATO commissary where the terrorist group headed by Palestinian born Kamal, Frank Alvance, is hold up with some 100 hostages. ***SPOILERS*** Going into action before help, the Italian police and NATO forces, can arrive at the NATO commissary by driving a stolen car through it's front entrance Kingsdale blasts away at anything in his gun sights taking out the entire terrorist crew with Kamel the only survivor making a mad dash to the commissary's exits. With the heavy footed, at well over 250 pounds, Kingsdale catching up with him he makes sure that Kamel never gets a chance to stand trial by pumping a full magazine, that he reloaded his 9.mm with, of slugs into him!

robert-temple-1 This is the last film made by the famous director Ed Dmytryk before his death. However, he must have been failing more than in health, as his creative juices seem largely to have dried up for this one. I hate to say this, because two of my old pals were involved in the production: George Davis ('in charge of production') and Roy Parkinson, Production Manager. George and Roy liked to work together whenever possible, and I can just imagine that George raised a sizeable portion of the budget for this project. He died just after Christmas in 1999, and most of the films he worked on in his long career are not listed on IMDb. Production accountants often get no screen credits, although they are the custodians of all the producers' darkest secrets, and I learned a few from George! As for Roy, it appears that he is still alive aged 95, and I hope his charming wife Lana is too. George and Roy were two of the most honest and decent men I ever knew, and this seems a fitting occasion to pay tribute to both of them. There was one occasion in particular when I had to consult with them about a most important and difficult decision involving the jobs of many people, and their support helped me to make it and eased me through a crisis of conscience caused by an act of financial corruption by the Boulting Brothers. George Davis and Roy Parkinson came from a generation when loyalty and values still existed and were widely held, though such qualities are today a vanishing commodity in a world ruled by greed. George Kennedy was a curious choice for a lead actor in this action movie, as he was already a bit old and getting overweight. Of course, he is good, but he would have been better 10 years earlier. And this is in any case really a sixties movie made in the seventies. Much of the casting is of well known names from an earlier era who are either given very little to do so that their talents are wasted (such as Rita Tushingham and John Mills) or who look shockingly past their sell-by date, such as Raf Vallone looking like a ghost of himself. The script is weak, and Dmytryk does little to save it. This is one of those films where in the story vengeance is seen to be done, and there's none of that 'they should have a fair trial' stuff, so this is a particularly gritty suspense film. I only wish it had been a better one.

Jonathon Dabell Did Edward Dmytryck really once direct The Caine Mutiny? On the evidence of this totally uninvolving, blood stained revenge tale, it's hard to believe that Dmytryck ever possessed any directorial talent. The Human Factor is slow-moving, cynical and emotionless.Also difficult to smallow is the presence of several fine actors. George Kennedy looks suitably frantic throughout, but is unable to make his predicament convincing due to poor scripting. John Mills has a major supporting role but his performance is as cold and inexpressive as the tone of the whole film. Raf Vallone (an Italian Oliver Reed look-a-like) meanders in and out of the story pointlessly as a policeman out to solve a multiple murder.The story has Kennedy as a NATO war-game computer programmer who lives and works in Naples, Italy. He returns home one day to find his wife and children dead, clinically executed by a mystery gunman or gunmen. He uses his computer access to track down the killers, and figures out that those responsible are a terrorist gang intent on murdering American families that live in Europe. Instead of passing this information on to the police, he decides to turn vigilante, tracking down and killing the terrorists himself.By 1975, film-makers clearly understood that audiences were hungry for Death Wish style revenge stories. But here, they have left out the sensational aspects of films like Death Wish, and tried (unsuccessfully) to give their story a political subtext. All this does is to slow down the action and make the plot treacherously confusing. The unpleasant finale, in which the villains lay siege to a crowded supermarket, is the only sequence which comes close to being powerful but it is over so quickly that you might miss it if you blink. All things considered, The Human Factor is a pretty dismal movie experience.

glockenspiel Although it surely didn't wow me, I think this movie had an interesting and somewhat suspenseful storyline. George Kennedy was practically a superhero here: running up flights of stairs and jumping rooftops without pausing for breath, nailing every target with his trusty handgun, and fighting the bad guys despite knife and bullet wounds. How did he do it? Anyway, it was an extremely serious film without a joke or gag in there (hard to believe from this that George went on to be in the Naked Gun trilogy), so don't put it on if you're almost out of anti-depressants. You can have a bit of fun by counting Pepsi references, though. I counted 3.