recommended

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The movie "Rage" starts with a few minutes of filler, a traveling helicopter shot of hilly grasslands and then a truck driving down a dirt road. The background music is really bad, vacuous. Lalo Shifrin gets the credit for composing this score. One demerit. I saw this movie on TCM as part of a full day of movies featuring George C. Scott. Bob Osborne said that as director, Scott bought this movie in a week early and under budget. Scott should have spent some more money, especially on lighting. Except for some scenes of violence at the end, "Rage" has the crummy photography, the long build-up and the shoddy writing you expect from a TV movie.Over 50 minutes pass before Scott's lunkhead character realizes something is amiss. I mean, at the start, he drives by sheep dead on his property, blood coming out of their noses. A normal person would think, what could have killed his sheep. Not Scott, though. As he drives to a hospital, he passes by a neighbor to drop his dog off. Does Scott phone the hospital from the neighbor's place to let them know of his major medical problem and all those dead sheep? Of course not. It was nice to see actor John Dierkes as the neighbor, an actor who was super in an earlier movie, 1959's "The Hanging Tree," where he co-starred with Scott."Rage" is a collection of scenes, with a story that is totally unreal. There is a pretty good scene where Scott stops by a gun store to buy an automatic rifle that he puts together by the gun counter. A copy of a similar type scene in a Sergio Leone movie where Eli Wallach's Tuco assembles a handgun from different guns. Only the Leone movie is done way better. More typical of this movie is where the Army officers meet to discuss how to handle their problem. The actors look like they were reading their lines from a teleprompter.Looking at the movie in total, as I do now, you come to the conclusion that this movie has enough story to fill a 30 minute TV show. Everywhere there is padding, with dialogue serving as filler like in a TV soap opera series. If the military had done the normal thing, tell Scott's character what the situation was and put him in isolation, there would be no movie. In real life, the dead sheep lying out in the open on the range land would have been a dead giveaway to the other ranchers and TV reporters.I added one star to my rating because of the appearance of John Dierkes. If this movie ever returns to TCM, avoid it.

This directorial debut of George C. Scott is not a disappointment in his direction of actors and himself; he conducts some effective dramatic sequences, some interesting thrilling scenes and almost creates a relevant story. In simple words: he plays Dan Logan, a rancher who wants to avenge his son's death during a failed military experiment where both were exposed to a nerve gas that also killed Dan's livestock. By hearing this summary, one might get easily involved with it but the movie plays it in the wrong way by sticking to a pointless revenge instead of making us relate with the main character. Since we live in a most politically correct era (I think!), most of the ideas perpetrated in "Rage" are dated, only works because of the 1970's context where the nation's leader at the time was Nixon and that same man years later would say that when a president does something that is considered illegal by the eyes of the public then such man isn't doing anything illegal. Blame all his wrongdoings on the politics, the system and its seduction. The same can be said of Dan. Blame it on the gas exposure, that's why he reacts in such an uncontrolled way. The example comes from above. Some viewers have said that they lost sympathy for him after all the innocent he killed (policeman, security officers and such). He lost my attention when he shot a cat that was protecting its owner from Dan's threats. It gets worse: by the time he's committed in blowing the laboratory responsible for creating the gas, he enters a room where several animals are locked in cages, future guinea pigs for the company. And do you think Dan sets them free? No, he leaves the place and stick to the plan, probably thinking "You've killed my livestock, my sheep's, you'll lose yours as well". It's understandable that he was under a lot of stress, he feared for his son, didn't get much information about his condition as he got worsened and wasn't warned about his death by anyone. But why no try to go through the proper channels? Why not spreading to the media about what was going on? Why not sue the people who got involved in this tragedy? It breaks my heart to see such a story with plenty of potential going to waste turned into a simplistic and almost silly film. Everything would be in a great tune if it wasn't for a script that prefers to focus on a dumb revenge instead of being an intelligent picture with a great message to present. I don't think Logan was pushed against the wall all that much, and if the character was smart he would find ways to make the military look bad. And here's a weird plot hole: how in the world the media people knew about his son's death, broadcasting on the radio about it when the military tried to hide the story at all costs? Just arrest the screenwriter.Scott's effort as a director were quite impressive, nice staging of scenes, filled of powerful dramatic moments (the scene where Chris, Dan's son, goes on shock, twitching in bed was quite scary), and the cast did a good job (Richard Basehart, Martin Sheen, Barnard Hughes, Nicholas Beauvy and Ed Lauter). But the message and the lack of idealism kills any possibility of making "Rage" something worth seeing. 5/10

Scrappy, ultimately pointless scare-tactics drama with George C. Scott playing a rancher who, along with his son, is accidentally sprayed with toxic chemicals by the military while on a camp-out. Scott made his directorial debut here and does a fine job handling the actors, as well as himself. Unfortunately, Scott's continuity as a filmmaker is spotty; worse, his vision of this material is singularly unimaginative, with routine action and set-ups which don't involve the viewer. The anti-military undermining isn't so much provocative as it is half-baked, and the narrative of the film strays. Martin Sheen, Richard Basehart and Barnard Hughes are all worth-watching here, and Scott as always is a magnetic screen performer, but this 'message film' is awfully tepid. ** from ****

While on a camping trip, Wyoming rancher Dan Logan (George C. Scott) and his son are inadvertently exposed to a secret Army chemical. Both of them end up the hospital and are lied to about their condition by a mysterious doctor (Martin Sheen) who is hoping to protect this top secret project. Of course, when Logan does find out he goes into a slow burning rage and kills everyone in sight. This relentlessly bleak thriller marked the first and only directorial feature from actor George C. Scott. He actually has quite a good eye and captures the Wyoming landscape beautifully with some well orchestrated helicopter shots. One might wonder if Scott was also crafting an anti-war parable. In the end, no one responsible for orchestrating the project has been killed and only innocent underlings have suffered Scott's rage. The script by Philip Friedman and Dan Kleinman marks their only work and it is too bad. It features an anti-authoritarian "don't trust the government" tone and pulls no punches (Scott's 12 year old son dies in the first half hour and the film ends with Scott suffering the same fate. Imagine that happening today).