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Play Dirty
- 149 statements
- 28 feature instances
- 5 referencing feature instances
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Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })Play Dirty is a 1969 World War II film directed by Andre DeToth (his last film, in fact), starring Michael Caine, Harry Andrews, Nigel Green, and Nigel Davenport.The film takes place during the North African Campaign. After several failed missions in German-held territory, Col. Masters (Green) wins a reprieve from the double-dealing Brigadier General Blore (Andrews) by offering to destroy a Nazi fuel dump way behind the battle lines. Masters sends out a seven-man patrol headed by the mercenary Captain Cyril Leech (Davenport) but technically commanded by Captain Douglas (Caine), an oil supply officer previously attached to rearward duties. The twist: Every man in this patrol is a convicted criminal.Released during The Vietnam War, this film is an extraordinarily cynical deconstruction of Elites Are More Glamorous, highlighting both the brutal behavior that's necessary to survive behind enemy lines and how little loyalty and ethics factor into special ops strategy. The patrol start out as Villain Protagonists and get worse as they go, with the biggest threat not being the Nazis but each other - and their unethical, self-serving commanders back at HQ who double-cross them at every opportunityAdvertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })The film was a financial failure, with many at the time suggesting that its bleak tone and Evil Versus Evil is inappropriate for a movie set in World War II (which had decidedly clear-cut bad guys), while others myopically dismissed it as a ripoff of The Dirty Dozen (released a year earlier). Years after release it earned something of a cult following thanks to high profile advocates of the film like Martin Scorsese (who included it on a long list of guilty pleasures for the May-June 1998 issue of Film Comment). | |
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Dropped link to ShaggyDogStory: Not a Feature - ITEM | |
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Darker and Edgier | |
| Play Dirty / int_14beeefd | comment |
Darker and Edgier: Is this for World War II movies as a whole. Certainly, there are plenty of WWII films about how War Is Hell, and even some with decidedly ambigious protagonists (such as Inglorious Basterds and The Dirty Dozen). But Play Dirty goes well beyond any of them. | |
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Evil Versus Evil | |
| Play Dirty / int_1645005b | comment |
Evil Versus Evil: One side is a group of mass-murdering sociopaths. The other side are Nazis. The battlefield is presented as a place where moral and ethical rules simply don't exist, which is fairly unusual for a movie set in WWII. | |
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Dressing as the Enemy | |
| Play Dirty / int_18dd6739 | comment |
Dressing as the Enemy: The commandos carry uniforms of three armies and tune to American, German and Italian radio stations every time they change identities. This backfires a few times throughout the movie, especially at the ending where the survivors of the group get mistaken for Germans and shot by their own men. | |
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| Play Dirty / int_1ebbebc5 | type |
Source Music | |
| Play Dirty / int_1ebbebc5 | comment |
Source Music: The film opens to a German officer driving to the tune of Lilly Marlene. The music suddenly changes to a swinging British version of the song, and he changes his Afrika Korp headgear accordingly to a British peaked cap. | |
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Shoot the Shaggy Dog | |
| Play Dirty / int_272abb98 | comment |
Shoot the Shaggy Dog: They end up tripping an alarm at the real dump and only manage to do minor damage in the ensuing chaos, which results in the deaths of everybody but Leech and Douglas. Then it's revealed that they made it to the dump less than a day before the actual British army, rendering the entire mission pointless. | |
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Fakin' MacGuffin | |
| Play Dirty / int_35e4fe72 | comment |
Fakin' MacGuffin: The fuel dump the commandos are after turns out to be a decoy. | |
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| Play Dirty / int_3ac583f4 | type |
SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism | |
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Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Very much on the cynical end. | |
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Bad Boss | |
| Play Dirty / int_3cb1d38d | comment |
Bad Boss: Blore approves Masters' plan to have his commandos blow the fuel dump,and then immediately turns around and assigns the same mission to his own officer, taking credit for the whole idea and using Masters’ exact same words. Blore then dispatches a second, official Army unit with the exact same mission, hoping Leech and Douglas's group will be killed serving as decoys for the ‘official’ strike force. Later, Blore informs Masters that the Allies are rolling through the country and that High Command now wants the fuel dump intact. Masters decides getting in contact with the commandos will be too difficult, and instead leaks to the Germans their plans and whereabouts. | |
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Curb-Stomp Battle | |
| Play Dirty / int_3d699462 | comment |
Curb-Stomp Battle: In a largely successful attempt to avert Do Not Do This Cool Thing, all of the battles are brief and abrupt steamrolls where one side can do little more than run around in confusion and horror while getting massacred by another, often unseen force. | |
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Dropped a Bridge on Him | |
| Play Dirty / int_43a045de | comment |
Dropped a Bridge on Him: Everybody in the squad meet abrupt, unceremonious ends. | |
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The Peter Principle | |
| Play Dirty / int_45de345c | comment |
The Peter Principle: Douglas is actually an oil company engineer loaned to the Army to work only in fuel transfers and has no actual military experience, but thanks to his rank he gets impressed to lead a commando mission behind enemy lines. While he does make a vital engineering contribution to the mission, his subordinates openly laugh at his efforts at command. | |
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So Much for Stealth | |
| Play Dirty / int_7831c048 | comment |
So Much for Stealth: Leech "forgets" to unload one of the trucks they're towing up a cliff, and the weight causes the cable to snap and the truck crashes to the ground, alerting the Germans to their presence. (Un)Fortunately, Blore's "official" strike force happens to be in the area and takes the heat for it, leaving the irregulars unnoticed. One of them sets off a flare trap while sneaking into the German fuel dump. It doesn't go as well for them this time. | |
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Unfriendly Fire | |
| Play Dirty / int_7fbb13bf | comment |
Unfriendly Fire: It's implied that Leech murders every officer sent into the field with him. He later admits that his interest in Douglas's survival is because Masters offered him 2,000 pounds if Douglas survives. | |
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Females Are More Innocent | |
| Play Dirty / int_86cd25b5 | comment |
Females Are More Innocent: The captured female nurse is the film's only sympathetic character. | |
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Karmic Death | |
| Play Dirty / int_90d44f44 | comment |
Karmic Death: The commandos spend the film killing non-combatants, and themselves get unceremoniously gunned down while fleeing or surrendering. | |
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Suicide Mission | |
| Play Dirty / int_9e062ca3 | comment |
Suicide Mission: A very literal example, as the irregulars aren't actually expected to succeed, but they serve as a decoy for a much larger regular force. Ironically, it's the regulars who drive into a German ambush and get killed, serving as the decoys for the decoys. | |
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General Failure | |
| Play Dirty / int_a01f88a7 | comment |
General Failure: The commanding officers aren't incompetent so much as viciously apathetic and self-serving, and treat the chain of command as a license to squander the lives of anybody below their rank. | |
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Cruel Twist Ending | |
| Play Dirty / int_a4cd4fc6 | comment |
Cruel Twist Ending: The Allies have broken through German lines and are sweeping through the desert - and the fuel dump that needed to be destroyed becomes a crucial objective to be captured. Since headquarters is cut off from the commandos, they tip off the Germans about the impending attack, which ends with everyone but Leech and Douglas killed. The captains flee to nearby Benghazi when the British Army breaks through. Still wearing the German uniforms they’d use to infiltrate enemy lines, the two concoct a white flag of surrender and march out to greet the liberators - and promptly get gunned down by a trigger-happy Tommy. | |
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Crossing the Desert | |
| Play Dirty / int_b8ba9b1f | comment |
Crossing the Desert: Most of the movie is this trope and the practical problems that ensue. The ground is so rocky that their tires wear out alarmingly fast, and they’re constantly stopping to change them. Strung out 400 miles behind enemy lines, the mini-convoy encounters unexpected minefields, and clever German booby traps. One of the most famous scenes is an almost Hitchcockian sequence of them simply trying to haul three jeeps up a cliff. | |
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Mindlink Mates | |
| Play Dirty / int_c05de85d | comment |
Mindlink Mates: In a rather bizarre moment, the wounded Arab guide shoots the German nurse after his homosexual lover is gunned down in the climax, suggesting they have this. | |
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Hope Spot | |
| Play Dirty / int_c3c18143 | comment |
Hope Spot: After the disastrous attack on the fuel dump, one of the commandos tries to flee by crawling through barbed wire, only to find himself staring at a machine gun. After a moment of horror, the German breaks into a smile and lets the relieved irregular crawl a few more feet before blowing him away. | |
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Elites Are More Glamorous | |
| Play Dirty / int_d5c7b415 | comment |
Elites Are More Glamorous: Averted. The commandos don uniforms of the enemy, loot corpses, revel in insubordination, accept bribes to bring back officers alive,(nearly) rape a German nurse, kill innocent bystanders and otherwise commit egregious and unclean deeds in the name of 'the mission.' What success they have has little do with their combat skills and everything to do with their willingness to "play dirty," and the one time they meet actual resistance sees them getting massacred. | |
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| Play Dirty / int_df858e81 | type |
Shoot the Medic First | |
| Play Dirty / int_df858e81 | comment |
Shoot the Medic First: Finding themselves out of a car, the crew ambush a German ambulance, kill the medics, and kidnap the nurse. | |
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Naïve Newcomer | |
| Play Dirty / int_ed05cfee | comment |
Naïve Newcomer: Douglas isn't as idealistic as most examples, but he still holds some pride in his uniform and has some notions of "fair play" when we're introduced to him. His subordinates openly defy him, and his superiors take advantage of this naivete to backstab him at every opportunity. | |
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| Play Dirty / int_f1d6144a | type |
War Is Hell | |
| Play Dirty / int_f1d6144a | comment |
War Is Hell: And bleak and amoral. | |
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Would Hit a Girl | |
| Play Dirty / int_f42f96fa | comment |
Would Hit a Girl: The only reason Leech doesn't execute the unfortunate German nurse on the spot is because one of his troops is wounded and needs treatment. She ends up suffering a lot of abuse, and gets executed at the end anyways. | |
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Attempted Rape | |
| Play Dirty / int_f85354eb | comment |
Attempted Rape: The commandos kidnap a German nurse to care for one of their wounded, and attempt to rape her as soon as the officers' backs are turned. Her patient intervenes by shooting one of her attackers in the ass. | |
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.
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Boxed Crook / int_eff376c4 | |
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Elites Are More Glamorous / int_eff376c4 | |
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Not Quite Saved Enough / int_eff376c4 | |
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Obligatory War Crime Scene / int_eff376c4 | |
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War Crime Subverts Heroism / int_eff376c4 |
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Copyright of data TVTropes.org contributors under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.