Play Dirty

André de Toth's 1969 film is set in North Africa during the Second World War. A British officer seconded from an oil company, with no military experience, is put in charge of a commando group disguised as Italian soldiers and sent behind enemy lines to destroy a fuel depot. Nobody on the team is a soldier; they work for money, they have records and they do not trust each other. The film rejects the heroic form of the war adventure from the outset: the orders rest on a lie, the command structure regards the team as expendable, and the mission ends nothing like anyone expected. The closing has a bitterness almost unseen in the war films of the period. Michael Caine never lets his character become likeable. Who it's for: viewers who like the bleak, anti-heroic wing of the war film. Who it's not for: anyone wanting victory and heroism; the film deliberately withholds both.