Waste of time

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Well done movie about Mercenaries in Africa led by Rod Taylor. Sent into the bush during a revolt by brutal beings called Simba's, to retrieve millions in Diamonds, this group consisting of a Black Sergeant (Jim Brown), an ex-Nazi and others, they rescue a bunch of civilians and bunch more are left to die. Really no good guys in here, though I always root for Rod Taylor, who is great as usual. I saw this at the Drive In!

I just watched a "sanitized" version of Dark of the Sun on TCM. It is still a COMPELLING movie that moves along just fast enough to keep me spellbound. Very good sound track, also. Problems, however, include: Jim Brown's character and his seemingly naive devotion to the political outcome in the Congo; Curry is just a little bit bigger than life and the German is a little too Nazi; it all works out in the end, albeit with plenty of dead bodies and sadness.In my opinion, this movie is well deserving of nine stars. In war, there are seldom any good guys (at least, none who want to talk about it). Notwithstanding the moral and ethical ambiguities throughout the film, this is the kind of stuff upon which I was raised. I would like to think that movies like this one taught me that there is almost always a less bad route, if not a clearly better route.

I first saw "Dark of the Sun" when I stumbled across it on TV. I was prompted to phone a friend and urge him to switch on this wild movie I was watching. Yesterday I saw the letterboxed version, and it's every bit as good as I remember it, plus it's not just a bone-head turn-on, but a fairly intelligent piece of cinema with an introspective hero and interesting themes. It reminds me of the Leonardo DiCaprio flick "Blood Diamond". Both films portray mercenaries, rough and cynical men who are on the edge and are pushed toward a state of grace.It's a guy thing. "Dark of the Sun", on the surface, is a violent, kick-ass action yarn about two mercenaries (Rod Taylor and Jim Brown) heading by train deep into the interior of the Congo to retrieve a cache of diamonds and, if convenient, some white refugees. A savage civil war is going full tilt. There's a nasty Nazi with an agenda, lots of blood-letting, total breakdown of law and order, wild, drunken black revolutionaries raping nuns and sodomizing young white guys. Polite it is not. Lots of brawn, muscle and sweat. It's as if the director (Jack Cardiff) grabbed a megaphone and screamed at the actors and extras: " Alright! Are you ready to ROCK?" To say that the action is energetic is an understatement. To quell your misgivings, though, I should add that much of the goings-on has a frenetic comic book feel. The poster for the movie actually gives a good idea what the movie is like. If you're a fan of Roberto Rodriguez, particularly his "Planet Terror", this movie should be right up your alley. I admit that there's a place in cinema and in my heart for heads-on bad taste.

The movie was well cast with tough Australian born Rod Taylor as the mercenary Captain Curry. Dressed appropriately in his Congo Auxiliary forces uniform right down to the rolex watch so common to special forces personnel in (at that time-late 60's) the Vietnam era. The action is good but sporadic. The conflict over the mission, what each character represented, and the ending are too diverse. The distractions with respect to asides within the movie were not necessary and made the film longer than necessary. The movie would have been better if they did not change the ending used in the Wilbur Smith novel. In the novel (as I recall) Capt. Curry and the the girl (Claire) went to live in Paris with some of the diamonds they recovered.