Review of March or Die (1977) by Andy A — 11 Aug 2009

A bit overly sentimental at times for such a brawny body as the French Foreign Legion, this lesser known piece of Gene Hackman's career is probably not so well known for good reason. The cliched plight of these haggard mercs really doesn't have much going for it, and some poor editing certainly doesn't help to further its cause.

I'll admit that this heavily romanticized excursion probably has much more potential than I'm giving it credit for, but its hard to give dues since it aspires to what "Khartoum" set out to do on a far less effective level and on a much smaller scale.

At times there is a sort of baroque melancholy captured in the smoky indoor scenes that is hard to not like, but for the most part the preening butt-chinned protagonist (Terence Hill), not to mention a highly distracting (and highly unfocused) romance with "Belle de Jour" temptress Catherine Deneuve, really prevents the viewer from enjoying any kind of fully realized desert fantasy in any way shape or form.

And, as a final parting shot, it would be important to remember that while the fantastic Ian Holm may have excelled as a Hobbit, an android and a even a futuristic priest, he was never EVER meant to play an Arab.