The legendary actor George C. Scott's theatrical directing debut is a decent revenge tale, one with some flaws, but it's still a slick, professionally made, and reasonably compelling yarn. Scott plays Dan Logan, a nice guy farmer out camping with his son Chris (Nicolas Beauvy) when they are accidentally exposed to a nerve gas that the Army was testing. It becomes clear that all the military wants to do is cover up the incident, and keep Dan in the dark, even when Chris dies. And naturally, once Dan learns the ugly reality of the whole situation, he determinedly seeks brutal revenge. Scott, working from a screenplay by Philip Friedman and Dan Kleinman, knows how to reel us in, with an extended pre-credits sequence serving up some heartwarming father and son bonding and then introducing the element of the nerve gas. Scott occasionally goes for some stylistic touches, particularly when it comes to slow motion, but mostly just sticks to telling the story in a straightforward manner, taking advantage of the Panavision aspect ratio in the way people and things are arranged in the frame. Fred J. Koenekamp does the beautiful cinematography and Lalo Schifrin supplies a wonderful music score. Now, it should be very easy to sympathize with Logan and root for him to hold the Army accountable, and it is at first, but his descent into cold blooded murder and nastiness is a pretty abrupt one, making it hard to really be on his side the entire time. Also, the authorities striving to keep things quiet do slip up more than once, which is rather contrived considering all the steps one would think they would be taking. And a key moment where Logan learns the truth about his own fate is not shown on screen and one would have to wonder why it would be left out. In any event, Scott keeps this watchable throughout, delivering a quietly intense performance and not resorting to much in the way of histrionics. He also ably directs a top notch supporting cast including Richard Basehart (very warm as Logan's physician and old friend), Martin Sheen, and Barnard Hughes, with familiar folk such as Stephen Young, Kenneth Tobey, Robert Walden, William Jordan, Dabbs Greer, John Dierkes, Lou Frizzell, and Ed Lauter in smaller roles. Overall, even with its flaws it's still pretty entertaining. Six out of 10.
Review of Rage
