The Professionals

Richard Brooks' The Professionals (1966) is a fun, rip-roaring action Western. Its nihilistic violence and cynical worldview mark it as an immediate predecessor to The Wild Bunch. Crammed with explosive action, cynical humor and machismo, it succeeds as pure entertainment. Only towards the end does it fall short of a genuinely great film.

Mexico, 1920. Oil magnate J.W. Grant (Ralph Bellamy) sees his wife Maria (Claudia Cardinale) kidnapped by Jesus Raza (Jack Palance), a Villista-turned-bandit. Grant hires a crack team of mercenaries to rescue his wife: veteran soldier-of-fortune Rico Fardan (Lee Marvin), amoral explosives expert Bill Dolworth (Burt Lancaster), sharpshooting scout Jake Sharp (Woody Strode) and packmaster Hans Ehrengard (Robert Ryan). The quartet ride into Mexico and rescue Maria, only to find that they've been set-up by Grant.

Journeyman writer-director Richard Brooks did his best work in straight dramas: Elmer Gantry and In Cold Blood are two of the '60s's best films, measured, intelligent and modestly-staged films that (mostly) avoided the preachiness of similar social dramas. Just before The Professionals, Brooks helmed an epic adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim, falling flat on his face in the process. Brooks bounces back with a perfectly constructed men-on-a-mission film, eschewing his usual drama for crowd-pleasing entertainment. And what entertainment!

The Professionals works on most every level. The film is briskly-paced, throwing thrillingly-staged action scenes at the audience, with concise exposition. Brooks' screenplay is word-perfect, delivering an endless stream of quotable, hard-boiled dialogue ("Do I gotta kill you to prove I like you?"), and the plot is ingeniously constructed - something far more apparent on a rewatch. Conrad Hall's beautiful cinematography captures foreboding salt flats, vast canyons and alkalai deserts, some of the most forbidding landscapes in a Western. Maurice Jarre contributes a lively, Mexican-infused score.

The film perfectly reflects the cynicism of the mid-'60s. The Magnificent Seven (1960), which depicts American hired guns as noble warriors defending the downtrodden. Here, our four heroes are mercenaries out only for money, shooting their way through dozens of Mexicans without batting an eye. Even when they discover their employer's deceit, they continue on with their mission: whether they're heroes or villain doesn't matter, so long as $10,000 is theirs. These guys have seen their share of fighting and revolution (Fardan and Dolworth are former allies of Raza), and have no use for idealism or principles.

The movie sags in its later sections. The twist is well-staged, and the falling action initially affirms the bleak outlook. But Brooks lets sentimentality creep into the final passages, much to the film's detriment. The climactic running gun battle is dampened by a series of pedantic debates on revolutionary politics. Even worse is the finale, where Brooks strains for a contrived, unsatisfying happy ending - though a brilliant closing line redeems much. Sentimentality is all well and good, when it seems organic to the material. Here, it seems a crowd-pleasing cheat.

The cast plays to their strengths. Lee Marvin is the tough, cool-headed team leader of The Dirty Dozen and The Big Red One; Burt Lancaster is the athletic, grinning rogue of Vera Cruz and The Crimson Pirate. Woody Strode (Spartacus) shines: usually relegated to bit parts, he holds his own against more established co-stars. Robert Ryan (The Wild Bunch) gets the weakest part, playing a whining malingerer. There's a reason for typecasting, and Brooks has no problem letting the actors speak for themselves.

Our leads are backed by an interesting supporting cast. Claudia Cardinale (Once Upon a Time in the West) and Marie Gomez are tough and sexy senoritas. Jack Palance (A Professional Gun) is oddly cast as a Mexican. Classic Hollywood star Ralph Bellamy (His Girl Friday) gets an excellent cameo.

The Professionals is a mostly-good adventure film that falls just short of being great. Still, its entertainment value is excellent, and for a film like this, I don't ask for much else.