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| Titles: KILLER FORCE/THE DIAMOND MERCENARIES Year: 1976 Rating: *** |
The only thing more pathetic than Peter Fonda's fake beard is that director Val Guest had almost no career after making some of Hammer Films' best work, from horror to war to science-fiction to (like this) crime thrillers...
And while KILLER FORCE is no Hammer there's Dracula himself, Christopher Lee, within a group of DIAMOND MERCENARIES in a South African desert where the beautiful-vastness of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA meets the jeep-leaping potential of THE RAT PATROL, and, either indoors or out, Lee's the most cold-blooded villain (killing perfectly good hooker Marina Christelis for no apparent reason) in a movie all about villains...
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| Hugh O'Brian, OJ Simpson and Christpher Lee in KILLER FORCE |
Meanwhile, buried lead Peter Fonda works for Telly Savalas, an uncompromising, office-set security chief (whose scenes were probably shot in a few days between KOJAK episodes) for an impenetrable diamond-mine outpost...
And soon the morally ambiguous Fonda's hired to go undercover into Christopher Lee's gang actually led by square-jawed Hugh O'Brian alongside Lee's 007 moll Maud Adams (as Fonda's girl) and O. J. Simpson, turning in his most natural non-performance since some genuine athletic abilities are used during the busy second and third acts...
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| OJ Simpson in KILLER FORCE with Peter Fonda |
That's when the rudimentary semi-complicated heist premise becomes more popcorn mainstream and thus, outright entertaining, and even suspenseful... the latter most likely thanks to director Val Guest...
The underrated British auteur (from QUATERMASS to HELL IS A CITY) does a nifty job with a standard script and meager budget that could have been forgettable without a consummate professional behind everyone, and everything.
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| Telly Savalas and Maud Adams KILLER FORCE |
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| Telly Savalas in KILLER FORCE |
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| Hugh O'Brian in KILLER FORCE |
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| Christopher Lee and OJ Simpson in KILLER FORCE |
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| Peter Fonda in KILLER FORCE |
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Peter Fonda in KILLER FORCE
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| Hugh O'Brian, OJ Simpson and Christpher Lee in KILLER FORCE |
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Marina Christelis in KILLER FORCE with Peter Fonda
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| Marina Christelis in KILLER FORCE |
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| Marina Christelis in KILLER FORCE |
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| Marina Christelis in KILLER FORCE with Christopher Lee |
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| South Africa location from KILLER FORCE |
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| South Africa location from KILLER FORCE |
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| South Africa location from KILLER FORCE |
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| Hugh O'Brian, Peter Fonda and Maud Adams from KILLER FORCE |
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| From KILLER FORCE the actual title being THE DIAMOND MERCENARIES |
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| Peter Fonda in KILLER FORCE |
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| Peter Fonda in KILLER FORCE |
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| Hugh O'Brian in KILLER FORCE |
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Hugh O'Brian in KILLER FORCE with Peter Fonda and OJ Simpson
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Val Guest gets credit for THE DIAMOND MERCENARIES aka KILLER FORCE
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| Hugh O'Brian in KILLER FORCE with Peter Fonda |
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| Hugh O'Brian in KILLER FORCE |
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| Val Guest's KILLER FORCE with Peter Fonda |
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| Maud Adams in KILLER FORCE aka THE DIAMOND MERCENARIES |
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Foreign poster for KILLER FORCE aka The Diamond Mercenaries
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| Christopher Lee and Hugh O'Brian in KILLER FORCE with Peter Fonda |
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| Christopher Lee and Hugh O'Brian in KILLER FORCE with Peter Fonda |
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