Please don't spend money on this.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Awesome Movie

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

I can't agree with those who rate this as one of those "so bad it's good" movies of its era, like Valley of the Dolls, Poseidon Adventure, Airport, etc. As trashy as they were, one thing those films were not: boring. Indeed, the very melodrama and bravura over-acting that made them trashy also made then compulsively watchable. But The Adventurers is very, very boring.Nothing coheres. There seem to be at least three movies being made at once. There's the story of revolution and politics in the fictional Latin American country of Corteguay, which is competently filmed (big battle scenes, crowd scenes, etc.) but not very compelling.Then there's the "racy" melodrama of Dax's days as a gigolo in Rome and his marriages to rich women; this part is really dull. The actors seem to be sleepwalking through their scenes (granted, the script gives them little to do); the result is neither trashy nor soapy, just shrug-worthy. We don't even get a scenery-chewing performance out of Olivia De Havilland, which should have been a given.And then there are two scenes that seem to have wandered into this movie from some other sound stage at Cinecitta, the fashion show-a-go-go in the second half, and the bizarre torture chamber concealed in Dax's Manhattan apartment. Those scenes feature wild, over-the-top production design, but they go nowhere and don't fit with the rest of the film at all. (Mario Bava could have built a whole movie around that "groovy" torture chamber, and it would have been a hundred times more interesting than The Adventurers.)This movie is just a long, boring misfire.

Ten-year old Dax (Loris Loddi) watches as soldiers massacre his family in the war-torn South American country of Corteguay, in 1945. It's an experience that has a profound effect on the boy, and influences his actions and behavior as an adult. Dax grows up to become a European playboy (Bekim Fehmiu), who periodically returns to the ongoing national upheaval in his home country. The film's underlying premise is fine. But the screen story is a mess.For one thing, Dax, the central character, is not very likable as an adult. He's too smug, too self-important, too haughty, and emotionally cold. If he's so concerned about the never-ending violence in Corteguay, why does he spend so much time hobnobbing with the rich and snobbish in Europe? His motivations don't really make sense.Second, the plot contains too many secondary characters that come and go, throughout. It's hard to keep track of them. For its large cast, the film is almost devoid of characters with whom the audience can identify and become attached. For all their "importance" and "savoir-faire", these secondary characters are hopelessly shallow and cold.Third, the film's dialogue is awful. It reminds me of one of those dreadful 1950's sword and sandal movies, with lines of dialogue so ponderous and so burdened with momentous gravity, you would think they should be delivered only by Hamlet. The film veritably drools with this overwrought melodrama.Further, the film's plot irritatingly oscillates between South America and Europe. One minute we're in Courteguay watching two poor, starving children begging for food. The next minute we're at a gaudy fashion show in Europe, or at some highbrow party listening to some lady belt out an operatic aria. It's as if the writer couldn't decide what story he wanted to tell.And the film's violence is excessive. The civil war subplot in Corteguay requires some brute force and destruction, naturally. But the violence here is much too personal, too graphic, and too gratuitous.To its credit, the film does have good cinematography, especially outdoors with that beautiful South American scenery. And the costumes and indoor production design are lavish, almost too much so, at times.Ultimately, "The Adventurers" is a pretentious bore that takes itself way too seriously. The characters are unappealing, the plot is muddled, the violence is excessive, and the dialogue is laughably ponderous. All of these liabilities are then magnified by the film's three-hour runtime.

I took my wife to see this one at the drive-in when it came out. I was only making $85 a week at the time, so three bucks to see a movie meant a lot. We left the theater about half way through this mess. Even the World News clips that they showed at intermission were better. My wife really loved the Robbins' novel, but had to admit that Wally Cox would have made a better Dax than the yahoo they had playing the part. The only reason we stayed half way through was because I wanted to see John Ireland...I reached for popcorn and missed his appearance in the film. This one is over-long, badly acted and bloody, extremely bloody considering when it came out. I was REALLY mad because I passed up "Vanishing Point"(1970) to see this klunker.

This film is under appreciated and rather than a mess, is a profundly complex comment on the cycle of revolution in a quest for legalism and constitutionalism.The character Dax Xenos mirrors the life of the revolutionary son and sometime exile Octavio Paz of Mexico; though the late Snr Paz became a man of letters; rather than a temporary gigolo to gain money for a business and to restore the values of his father to his homeland!