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Mercenary Martin (Luc Merenda) is hired to capture (or indeed kill
& bring evidence of his demise) a scumbag named Leon, who has been
assassinating poiticians all over Africa. But as tough luck has it, Leon
is now a soldier stationed deep in the African jungle, so the only thing
for Martin to do is to become a soldier himself, & stand (for a while)
the abuse of major Haggerty (Donald O'Brien) ... but for some (yet)
unexplained reason, Martin also finds a loyal black manservant in the
native Wabu (Percy Hogan) - whom he for some reason treats like dirt, but
that doesn't stop Wabu from serving him.
Eventually Martin learns that Haggerty is behind Leon's head as well,
& so are fellow soldiers O'Sullivan & Pulasky (Wolfgang Soldati),
who for some reason always carries a live rabbit with him, so the four of
them make up a devious plan - to go on some important mission with
Leon & then desert the regiment.
Everything goes well at first, but eventually they get into an ambush
by the enemy, & have too shoot their way out ... & soon enough
O'Brien is killed, & Martin seriously wounded ... but the others still
have to drag him along, as he is the only one who knows how to get the
reward money. Eventually (again) Wabu appears, again he is treated like
dirt (even if he repeatedly helps them out of tough spot with his native
knowledge), but again they cannot shake him.
After a while, Leon starts to annoy the others like crazy, culminating
in forcing Pulasky to kill his own beloved rabbit (which he always carries
along) for food. Pulasky does so, & lets Leon eat the whole rabbit -
of course without mentioning that he has put a truckload of poison onto
the animal, & before long, Leon is dead.
Now the others are forced to not only drag wounded Martin but also dead
Leon along ... & only when they are all really at the end of their
stre4ngth has Martin the clever idea to cut off his head & drag this
along (after all his dental imprints are as unique as his fingerprints.
Before long though the major & Pulasky decide to shoot it out (less
people, a bigger share of the reward), & the major brutally kills
Pulasky, then somehow gets rid of Wabu too, before he forces the
half-delirious to tell him where to get the reward money, then he leaves
him oput in the jungle to die ... but of course Wabu isn't dead yet &
soon appears again to drag his master along ... only eventually,
& almost at their destination, does he break down.
The major meanwhile has delivered the head, it was verified, & he
got the reward ... half a cheque for one million dollars - Martin has
locked the other half away at the beginning of the movie, but noone knows
that but him. But while the major is still furious about half the cheque,
Martin arrives, & the 2 have a shootout, each shooting the other dead
... then Wabu arrives, by far not as naive as everybody thought, &
perfectly capable of speaking in the white man's tongue, & he
has little trouble figuring out that there might be a connection between
half the cheque and the locker key Martin has carelessly shown him,
believing him to be as naive as he acted.
Soon Wabu has put the million Dollars in his Swiss bank account, has
withdrawn 50.000 just for fun & enjoys the big life with a hot broad
(whom Martin has lusted for at the beginning of the movie).
Despite obvious parallels to Sam Peckinpah's masterpiece Bring me
the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), this could have been many things, a cynical mercenary film, a rough character study
& above all a parable of racism hitting back in one's own face. But of
course director Joe D'Amato was never a man of subtleties, plul he wasn't
really at home in the war genre, plus the budget was rather low, so the
outcome is more a trashy mercenary film, although with the unexpected
but pleasant outcome of the black man beating the whites at their own
game.
Not too bad, if you can get into trashy war films, but then again, not
too good either.
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