Best Revenge (1982)

User Rating:

3.9/10   

Director:

John Trent

Writers:

John Hunter (writer)
Rick Rosenthal (writer)

Release Date:

19 October 1984 (UK)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

An American tourist in Spain is forced to take part in a $4 million drug deal, because his best friend has been kidnapped and is being tortured by the drug kingpin who set up the operation. |

Plot Keywords:

Drugs | Hashish | Torture | Independent Film

Cast

John Heard	...	Charlie
Levon Helm	...	Bo
Alberta Watson	...	Dinah
Stephen McHattie	...	Brett
Moses Znaimer	...	Leo Ellis
John Rhys-Davies	...	Mustapha
Benjamin Gordan	...	Willy
Hrant Alianak	...	Elliah
Tim McCauley	...	Absolom
Lorenzo Campos	...	Ahblon
David Calderisi	...	Poker Player
Michael Ironside	...	Dealer
Angus MacInnes	...	Wayne
Rob Garrison	...	Eddie
Sean Sullivan	...	Paperman

Also Known As:

Misdeal (Canada: English title)

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

Canada | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Algeciras, Cádiz, Andalucía, Spain

Soundtrack:

Straight Between The Eyes

One of my favorites

This film is slightly reminiscent of Midnight Express in that it involves Americans and hash smuggling. For the most part, though, that's where the similarities end. Where "Midnight Express" was pretty much relentlessly dark and brutal whose main msg seemed to be "Middle Easterners bad, Americans good", "Best Revenge" has many friendly, trustworthy, admirable Arabs, and three or four absolutely irredeemably treacherous, amoral Americans.

"Best Revenge" has some great acting, w/ all of the characters well-drawn and believable. This is the first movie in which I'd ever seen Rhys-Davies, and he is completely convincing in his role as the "broker"- the contact man who makes all the arrangements for the Morrocan part of the caper, who ends up taking on a much more hands-on, personal role than he'd bargained for.

There's great action, complete w/ a harrowing, extended car chase scene over treacherous, unpaved mountain roads in an old VW bus. There are plot twists galore and one of the best surprise endings I've ever seen. There's great, on-location camera work. All of the "extras" seem to be simply the locals just going about their lives, naturally and unaffectedly. There's even a scene done in the "packing shed" where they go to pick up the hash that just about had to have been the real thing; the workers quite obviously can't speak English and can't seem to help snatching a short glance or two at the camera, smiling shyly when they realize it's pointing at them, there are rolls of cheesecloth here and there in the room (used to wrap the product before it's pressed into "cakes"), and the "hash cakes" stacked in the room just look too much like real Moroccan hash to be anything that prop makers could come up with.

Great plot, great acting, great scenery, believable characters, suspense, intrigue, genuine human emotions, and a surprise ending. Don't know what those folks that rated this flick so low could have been thinking about.

Probably narcs.