The Adventurers (1970)

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.

Taking a look at the DVD case for this, you read a whole different text than what this movie actually is. The DVD case presents a movie that is a romantic action adventure, a children's movie (rated PG) or at least family movie about a hero who gets the girl and everything turns out all right in the end.This movie is rated PG.We open on a boy and his dog, idyllic, playful, nothing to worry about. The music is friendly, the colors are friendly, the land is friendly, everything is perfect. Then a gunshot rings out and the dog falls dead. The boy runs to a villa, where he watches his family get raped and murdered, all very bloody, violent, and horrifying (much like the same type of violence in A Clockwork Orange, actually).This movie is rated PG.We follow this boy's journey through life, not as an action adventure, but as an epic... the story of a man who, after the trauma of his family's near complete destruction, is sent away to Rome to escape the made-up South American land of Corteguay, where he transistions between being an adulterist playboy (much like a less liked and less proactive James Bond, which is interesting because the director made Moonraker), to an apathetic, bitter nigh-rapist, to the potential savior of Cortequay who is only used and abused by its leaders until he himself falls victim and nothing changes for the better.This movie is rated PG.We follow a whole melange of extra characters as they move through their either abused, poor life without happiness, or their empty, corrupted life as the rich, and how they all intermix and intermingle to create a land, Corteguay, that is constantly at war with itself, and how they all add to it their own violence.This movie is rated PG.We follow playboys into S&M dungeons (again, imagery very alike A Clockwork Orange), young boys becoming men by shooting down rows of prisoners with automatic machine guns, women without control of their independence, civil leaders claiming that "There must be a cohesion of evil and politics," revolutionaries who rape, pillage, plunder, and massacre; prostitute nuns, apathetic heroes, unstimulating sex (and lots of it), children getting killed, and the beauty of civilization and nature juxtaposed with explosions and grimacing Gothic architecture, idealistic moments ALWAYS ended suddenly with pronounced, crippling pain.This movie is rated PG.I'll go out on a limb here and say that it's probably likely nobody likes this movie. It's not likable. It's well done, but clocking in at just over 3 hours of watching the horrors of humanity being committed again and again while our unsympathetic hero has sex with everything with two legs and makes a living off of it... Even if it was marketed correctly, it wouldn't be approached correctly.--PolarisDiB

After many years in the exile, marrying and having affairs with wealthy and beautiful women, the son of a former revolutionary and futile play-boy Dax Xenos (Bekim Fehmiu) returns to his country invited by the corrupt president to a homage to his father. He finds that he has a son living in the country, and decides to raise funds to help the life of the people of his country. However, the money is used to buy weapons, and he decides to fight together with the revolutionary El Lobo against the corrupt president.I saw this movie many years ago, and at that time I liked it. However, I have just watched it on VHS, and now I found it a corny soap-opera. The story is a complete mess, and it is difficult to understand the motivations of the lead character. The contact of a few moments with an unknown son would be enough to change the behavior of a futile person to a revolutionary? Is the intention of the novel of the writer Harold Robbins to say that South American countries are supposed to live with successive revolutions and corrupt president and leaders? The beauty of Candice Bergman is one of the worthy parts of this forgettable movie. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "O Mundo dos Aventureiros" ("The World of the Adventurers")

I liked this movie when I first saw it in the UK. It was R rated and deserved to be. Definitely for mature audiences. Don't know why it was released as PG rated in US. Lost some of its mature content and bite as a result.