Who Dares Wins (1983)

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Other people will and have commented on weaknesses in the plot line and logic. This is by no means a great movie. But on the other hand if you're channel surfing and come upon this action movie, I've seen far worse action flicks. If you can't find a decent flick you can get a few hours of mindless action flick entertainment out of this one.In some ways, in tone and pacing it kind of reminds me of the Chuck Norris/Lee Marvin flick "Delta Force". That one also dealt with a special forces group (in this case, an American unit) having to take action to rescue hostages from terrorists. But in this case, it's the British SAS troops to the rescue.

When I read Roger Ebert's review of this film I shook my head. But then I took about a year to think about what he had written, and recalled the film as best as I could. Then I went and tried to find copy, but unfortunately one wasn't to be found unless I ordered a R2 disc from the UK.Failing that I then went ahead and scoured Youtube for some clips, and sure enough, there was the final climatic raid uploaded by some fan. I watched it, liked the production values, but Roger Ebert's review of the film came back to me.In short, he's right. The physical portrayal of the film itself is fine, but the story is awful. The plot is contrived out of the bowels of some paranoid military think-tank, where they come up with possible terrorism scenarios. The threat at the time was the USSR and the Soviet block in large. With that came any suspicion regarding communist influence. One of the political movements created by the Soviet's to put pressure on Europe to disarm was the Green Party (still thriving to this day). Specifically their efforts were aimed at removing US forces from Europe (notably Germany and the UK).The film makers took that premise and ran with it in this film. Could it happen? Well... maybe. The plot is pretty outlandish. Not that similar things haven't happened in real life within the realms of law enforcement and "operations other than combat" for the military as they put out international fires the world over, but this plot seems more like a bad James Bond movie than something plausible.You may say "Well, mister Blueghost, what would you have done?" Oh, I have a definite vision for a movie of this type. But will refrain from putting those thoughts here.Regarding the climatic sequence. I think the movie's worth a look for that alone. For military junkies it'll get you excited. For the more pacifist of us it'll make you shake your head as to why anyone would resort to terrorism in the first place, particularly when your fate is sealed.One is reminded of the UK's Iranian Embassy hostage situation in 1980. From all accounts the terrorists (mostly anyway) turned coward, threw down the weapons, and tried to hide among the hostages they had threatened to kill. Well, that didn't sit well with either hostages nor the Special Air Servicemen who came in to "neutralize" the terrorists. In short, the hostages pointed out the terrorists trying to hide, and the SAS simply killed them. There was little in the way of a fire fight or resistance. But would that make for a good movie? No more than the impossible (and I'll go ahead and say ludicrous) plot portrayed in this film. In a word, "no".The film makers did their best. For that they deserve kudos. And, I'll add, their version of an anti-Terrorist film is probably the best thing on the film market, which isn't saying much for the genre. There's a good anti-terrorist film to be made somewhere. When it'll come for the military fans one can only guess.In the meantime if you can stomach the story shortcomings, and let the drama and exhibition overtake you, then you should enjoy yourself. Otherwise I'd recommend giving it a pass.Not a bad film as such, but not a good one either.

This is actually a pretty bad film. The ideology is not as perverse as in those films Collins made later. However, my main misgivings about the film are that it is implausible and quite frankly boring for a long time. The whole concept of an ex-SAS man joining terrorists for no particular reason isn't very convincing and you can't help wondering why a group of highly organized terrorists (who later become pretty clueless) fall for it. The film starts with a pretty powerful scene but then meanders for quite a long time building up towards the great finale. Overall, I think Who dares wins could have been an interesting 45 minutes episode of The Professionals but the story doesn't carry a feature film. Although reasonably successful at the time this film initiated the demise of Collins' career who in the eighties mainly made cheap and dubious soldier-of-fortune or army films. Pity, because he actually is quite a versatile actor but at the end of the day Martin Shaw chose his roles more carefully and has a career that's still successful.

I used to watch my MGM/UA VHS copy of this film (entitled THE FINAL OPTION) all the time in the 1980s now I have to watch the region 2 DVD as WHO DARES WINS; but who cares . . . its just as great although not enhanced for 16:9. What I love about action films up to 1990 or so is that the good guys are really the good guys and the bad guys are really the bad guys, there's no ambiguity here. The Final Option is a movie that works on many levels culminating with the hero being taken "hostage" by The People's Lobby taking the hero's wife hostage; you have two dramas occurring at once. Judy Davis is awesome as the lead terrorist--she's deep into her character; acts her heart out. And that guy playing the hero, Skellon is really tough and stoic and really James Bond all the way and really in shape too; his wife is really cute. And then we have Helga played by Countess Dracula and Carmilla herself INGRID PITT; a mean, very mean German who wants to literally "shoot the baby"!!!! There's a good catch about where the terrorists are actually getting their money from making us think about the power seekers and who the power seekers really are and how the power seekers are really pulling the strings. Roy Budd's music is truly great for a true action film with a deeper meaning . . . an awful lot of blood squibs in mouths, bleeding lips and so forth. See this movie!!!!