Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This film, as did a lot of 70's films, works best at the symbolic level. When I finished watching this, I felt director Scott had tried to channel Italian director Antonioni ("L'avventura," "Blowup," etc.). This is a courageous move, as this is billed as an action-revenge movie, a genre which tends not to require too much mental engagement from the viewer but the willingness to get to the cheap-thrill roller-coaster ride. As a three-act screenplay, its effect is much more subtle. It actually may be said that this is an anti-action film due to its subtle character development dynamic. The faces carry it, the dialogue contributes very little. I won't spoil the movie much as most reviewers have already disclosed the critical plot-points. Logan, a loving and friendly widower, raises his son--as God would raise his own son--in his image to love nature and love animals (interestingly, the otherwise dreary Tom Laughlin film, "Born Losers" opens with similar wide-open-spaces, "Adam-in-nature" imagery). The opening shot of the camera coming down from heavenly clouds to a bucolic, edenic earth says it all. We're foreshadowed "wrath-of-God-unto-the-unrighteous" stuff here. The father-son relationship is conveyed via images rather than through dialogue. The latter serves to characterize, rather heavy-handedly, the heavies from the quietly burgeoning military-industrial complex (more on this below). The dad watches over his son, patiently and indulgently teaches him how drive a stick (try teaching someone sometime in _your_ car and note how aggravating, if not damaging to your gearbox, the process is!), and his bond with his dog is evident. The dog, Lassie-like, abides by one of Logan's words! So, this guy is even a friend to animals... The plot takes off when Logan and son go in for some overnight, father-son bonding-camping. Absolutely, there exist credibility gaps in the plot. Is Logan a bit denser that most of us? His IQ, reasoning process is never established. His heart, big as all Wyoming outdoors, is. He is a tender, trusting human being, perhaps one not given to cold rational thinking(unlike the calculating heavies), but one whose mind appears dedicated to raising his son in a bucolic, wholesome environment. Enter the US Army and its CYA thinking. This is an institution we have been bred to trust to _protects us_, like a loving, trusted father (get where this is going?) Two worldviews collide. Logan allows himself to believe what he wants to believe. He even trusts Dr. Holliford's (Martin Sheen) Army-led medical team, which eventually begins to sedate him. Only Logan's long-time friend, the family doctor, Dr. Caldwell, portrayed by long-time veteran, Richard Basehart, watches out for Logan. The conspiracy of silence expands as even the Health Department doctor, Dr. Spencer, gets co-opted to lie to Logan about his condition and his son's death. The slow disintegration of trust ends when Logan finds his son's corpse in the hospital morgue. A slow rage due to betrayal begins to simmer. Logan strikes back the only way he knows how. The careless killing of Spencer's cat foreshadows Logan's loss of love for animals (eventually men), a behavior learned from his new nemesis, the MI-Complex. Logan goes on a blind, rage-fueled destruction and killing spree. The MI Complex has nothing on him. Logan has quickly learned to kill arbitrarily, security guards, policemen, sentries--whomever stand in his way. Even innocent, caged animals die by his hand--the very same victims of the MI Complex. Logan, as Nietzsche warned, has become just like his enemy... It all comes to naught as we, and he, learn. There really was nothing to destroy. It's a _worldview_ Logan took on. He comes to understand that the MIC's nihilism has transformed him into a spiteful killing machine and spares a truck-drivers life. He no longer fires at anyone in the base. He waits to die a painful death. The man of nature (God?) is dead. His long-time friend left, Dr. Caldwell remains, grieving. Basehart's face says it all... Overall, I did not know whether the flaws in this film were due to a lack of rewrites in the script, or too many. Wish I could read it to compare to the film. Scott has an interesting directing style, but definitely not one that fits the Hollywood formula. The clever camera-work "edits" in the early father-son scenes mystified me. They brought too much attention to themselves and added little to the narrative. One reviewer complained about the lighting. I find that hard to believe--as the noir style and in one sequence Logan walking into the darkness as his character sinks into nihilism and rage adds so much to the narrative and character development. Even Lalo Schifrin's clichéd, corny, bucolic harmonica in the opening sheep-farm scenes invites us into Logan's, un-thinking, all-feeling, clichéd Americana, "one-with-nature-in-the-farm" world--one that will soon perish, destroyed by you know who... Be well.

***THIS COMMENT MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*** Maybe its me but there was something about this film that worked on my nerves like a tongue on a rotten tooth. It's based on a true incident in Utah in which an Army truck dropped a cannister filled with nerve gas and a butt-load of sheep bought the proverbial farm. But if the wind had happened to be blowing in the direction of Salt Lake City that day... George C. Scott (wearing what looks distractingly like fake eyebrows) directed and stars in this fictionalized account of a farmer and his young son who are accidentally poisoned with nerve gas by the Army. Perhaps its my own experiences at the hands of prison doctors that makes the many scenes of bloodless technocrats abstractly speaking about the opportunity to study nerve gas symptoms and blithely LYING with their every breath so quietly, eerily effective. After being lied to in the worst possible way by all responsible, George C. Scott's doomed farmer wreaks some almost Rambo-like revenge! I had heard about this movie for years and always wondered just what sort of havoc Mr Scott would wreak went he went into his RAGE... It was quite something to see him shooting security guards in the face and generally going postal. One can certainly understand where he is coming from. A film like this would never be made today, especially with a major movie star both directing and starring. George C Scott knows how to handle actors--this is probably one of Richard Baseheart's best performances--full of great conflicted emotions and heavy themes to wrestle with--and what a voice that man had! I think that one of the strengths of the story is the semi-documentary feel to the events. There is no giant conspiracy, just an average army-style Cover-Your-Ass situation, with those responsible already well insulated by their positions of power. The revenge enacted by Scott's character is as understandable as it is ultimately ineffective, a message nicely telegraphed by the final image, which I won't divulge here. Suffice it to say, this is one of those strange cinematic oddities from the 70's that has become, unfortunately, once again relevant. After all... if the wind had happened to be blowing towards Salt Lake City that day...

Well, everyone here who has submitted a review has given out all the spoilers for this film, which is why I stopped reading reviews here until I saw a movie. So by now you know all about the plot. I have not seen this one for awhile but I still remember this movie very well. The revenge Scott's character extracts is almost total and quite extensive which in my book makes this a great film to watch. It's not a movie I would watch with any women; they would hate it and probably go in another part of the house to watch something else. But for guys, this is one adrenalin pumped action flick that plays out like a true to life event. I'm a military type and I know it carries a heavy military bashing storyline, but hey I found it all being plausible and if that ever did happen I could see events transpiring the way they did in the film. If you like man vs society type films than this is your type of action film. Recommended.

George C Scott stars and makes his directorial debut in this tense but ultimately pointless drama about a peaceful rancher who goes on a rampage of revenge after a botched military nerve-gas experiment conducted over his land leads to the death of his young son. You can feel Scott's character's frustration as he's lied to and stone-walled from every angle by the military bureaucrats who want to cover up the incident. Scott knows how to keep things moving and shows some stylish touches in the director's chair, but he can't keep the ending from being disappointing and unsatisfying. Still, all said, it's a fairly absorbing ride while it lasts. It's a movie that will likely stay with you long after the end credits roll.