Mercenaries in Popular Culture - Films

Films

See also List of war films: Mercenaries in the Third World

• Professional Soldier (1935) - Directed by Tay Garnett, with the story written by Damon Runyon features ex-US Marine Victor McLaglen hired to kidnap young prince Freddie Bartholomew but changing his mind and giving his employers notice that their services are no longer required by mowing them down with a water cooled Maxim gun fired from the hip.
• The General Died at Dawn is a 1936 film which tells the story of a mercenary who meets a beautiful girl while trying to keep arms from getting to a vicious warlord in war-torn China. The movie was written by Charles G. Booth and Clifford Odets, and directed by Lewis Milestone. It stars Gary Cooper, Madeleine Carroll and Akim Tamiroff.
• Flying Tigers (1942) and God is My Co-Pilot (1945) based on the memoirs of Robert L. Scott concern the adventues of the American Volunteer Group of pilots who flew P-40s for China against the Japanese prior to Pearl Harbor
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) - Based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway, Gary Cooper is a mercenary who finds meaning to life fighting in the Spanish Civil War alongside Ingrid Bergman
• China (1943) - Alan Ladd is a mercenary who finds meaning to life fighting against the Japanese in China before Pearl Harbor alongside Loretta Young
• The Seven Samurai (1954) and The Magnificent Seven (1960) are both fictional accounts that deal with seven unemployed samurai/gunslingers who agree to protect an impoverished village from 40 bandits for sub-minimal wages
• Hell and High Water (1954) - Samuel Fuller's account of a former submarine commander Richard Widmark leading a team of naval mercenaries, an atomic scientist, and his daughter on a secret mission to the Arctic Circle to stop a Red Chinese plan to atomic bomb Korea using a captured American B-29. In addition to its topicality of the Soviet H-Bomb, the film was made to showcase Cinemascope being used in the confined sets of a submarine.
• Soldier of Fortune (1955) - Based on the novel by Ernest K. Gann. Clark Gable is hired by Susan Hayward to locate and free her husband from a prison in Red China.
• The Professionals (1966) - Richard Brooks' film tells a fictional tale of 4 specialists (automatic weapons (Lee Marvin, explosives (Burt Lancaster, tracker (Woody Strode), and mule skinner (Robert Ryan)) who are hired by a big businessman (Ralph Bellamy to rescue his kidnapped wife (Claudia Cardinale) from a Mexican bandit (Jack Palance) at the beginning of the 20th century.
• Africa Addio/Africa-Blood and Guts (1966)-A documentary by the team behind Mondo Cane that filmed Africa in the early 1960s and featured mercenaires in the Congo Crisis
• Dark of the Sun/The Mercenaries (1968) - Based on the novel by Wilbur Smith originally titled Last Train From Katanga about mercenaries in the Congo Crisis and Katanga excitingly directed by Jack Cardiff starring Rod Taylor and Jim Brown, a score by Jacques Loussier, and filmed in Jamaica.
• Seduto Alla Sua Destra/Black Jesus (1968) - A fictionalised story based on Patrice Lumumba, played by Woody Strode, who is captured by mercenaries.
• El Mercenario/The Last Mercenary(1968) - A fictionalised account produced by and starring Ray Danton as a mercenary who travels from the Congo to work in Brazil.
• Sette Baschi Rossi/The Red Berets/Congo Hell (1969) - Fictionalised account of mercenaries somewhere in sub-Sahara Africa that was the directing debut of Mario Siciliano.
• The Last Grenade (1970) - Fictionalised account of mercenaries beginning in Africa then travelling to the New Territories of Hong Kong and later Red China. Only the characters are based on John Sherlock's 1964 novel The Ordeal of Major Grigsby featuring a cast of Stanley Baker, Alex Cord, Richard Attenborough, John Thaw, and Honor Blackman.
• The Last Valley (1970) - A band of unemployed mercenaries take over an isolated valley during the Thirty Years' War. The film stars Michael Caine and Omar Sharif.
• The Man Who Would Be King (1975) - A John Huston film based on the story by Rudyard Kipling. Two Victorian Era ex-British Army sergeants played by Sean Connery and Michael Caine go beyond the Northwest Frontier with 20 rifles to hire themselves out to local warlords in search of adventure, treasure, and destiny.
• High Velocity (1976) - Fictionalised account of former Vietnam War veterans played by Ben Gazzara and Paul Winfield living and working in the Philippines.
• The Wild Geese (1978) - The film, starring Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and Hardy Krüger, shows the recruitment, training, and deployment of a 50 man force who rescue a moderate African leader based on Moise Tshombe in an unnamed sub-Saharan African nation. Daniel Carney's book has a screenplay by Reginald Rose, an exciting score by Roy Budd, Mike Hoare acts as technical adviser and is directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, son of Victor.
• Scorticateli Vivi/The Wild Geese Attack/Skin 'Em Alive/Duri a morire/Tough To Kill (1978) - An Italian action film which concerns a group of mercenaries in an unspecified African country who turn on each other. Many action setpieces from The Red Berets reappear in the film that was made by the same director.
• Cuba (1979) - Ex-SAS Major Sean Connery and ex-RAF pilot Denholm Elliot are hired by the Fulgencio Batista regime to put down Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution in 1959. It was directed by Richard Lester.
• The Dogs of War (1981) - Based on Frederick Forsyth's novel of a mercenary operation led by Christopher Walken that proceeds from Central America to the planning, preparation, and execution of a mercenary operation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Director John Irvin's erudite film begins with a quote from Shakespere's Julius Caesar and ends with A.E. Housman's poem Epitaph For an Army of Mercenaries being sung over the end titles.
• Uncommon Valor (1983) - Gene Hackman recruits former soldiers to rescue POWs, including his own son, from a prison camp in Laos.
• Under Fire (1983) - A fictional account of a comedy relief mercenary in Nicaragua meeting journalist Nick Nolte
• Code Name: Wild Geese (1984) - Lewis Collins and Lee Van Cleef in a fictionalised account of mercenaries in the Far East
• Commando Leopard (1985) - Lewis Collins again is a mercenary up against rival mercenaries led by Klaus Kinski
• Flesh & Blood (1985) - The story of an insurgent mercenary band in Renaissance Italy, featuring Rutger Hauer as the band's leader.
• Men of War (1994) - John Sayles wrote a film about a group of mercenaries led by Dolph Lundgren who are sent to an unnamed Asian country on behalf of big business interests, When they empathise with the locals, their employers have to hire another mercenary group to destroy them.
• The Substitute (1996) - Tom Berenger stars as the head of a crew of mercenaries who finds himself teaching as a substitute teacher in a tough American high school by day and fighting a drug ring in his off time.
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)- The corporation InGen hires several mercenaries and hunters to capture dinosaurs on Isla Sorna.
• Ronin (1998) - Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, Sean Bean and Stellan Skarsgård plays mercenaries.
• Savior (1998) - American Regular Army officer Dennis Quaid loses his wife and child in a terrorist bomb attack in Paris that leads him to plot revenge, escape prosecution by joining the French Foreign Legion then leaving to become a mercenary in Bosnia where he rediscovers his lost humanity.
• Jurassic Park 3 (2001)- 3 mercenaries named Cooper, Nash, and Udesky are infiltrating the island of Isla Sorna to find a missing boy named Eric Kirby only to be eaten by a Spinosaurus and a pack of Velociraptors
• Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)- The main antagonist, Lyle T. Rourke turns out to be a ruthless mercenary who is out to steal a crystal from Atlantis to make tons of money only to be crystallized and shattered into a million pieces at the end.
• The Chronicles of Riddick - A trilogy that contains numerous mercenary/bounty hunter characters, most notably William J Johns and Toombs.
• Man on Fire (2004) - Denzel Washington plays a former mercenary hired as a bodyguard for a young girl in Mexico City who subsequently gets kidnapped. Christopher Walken plays his buddy and fellow mercenary who currently runs a bodyguard service in Ciudad Juarez.
• Blood Diamond (2006) - Leonardo DiCaprio plays a white Zimbabwean mercenary and diamond smuggler who attempts to obtain the diamond from Djimon Hounsou's character. The film examines the use of professional mercenary soldiers in third-world conflict zones, often paid directly in namesake "blood diamonds". Especially notable is one of the movie's later scenes, which depicts a private army of ruthless South African mercenaries launching an assault on one of Sierra Leone's many dangerous conflict zones in search of rare pink diamonds.
• Outpost (2008) - Ray Stevenson plays a mercenary who is hired to protect a mysterious businessman in a war-torn eastern-bloc country with a crack team of ex-soldiers.
• Rambo (2008) - John Rambo, the main protagonist of the series, played by Sylvester Stallone joins a team of mercenaries, on a mission to save a group of volunteered missionaries, who are held captive in Burma.
• Babylon A.D. (2008) - Vin Diesel stars as a mercenary hired to protect a mysterious girl named Aurora to New York.
• The Star Wars series, particularly the Expanded Universe, features many mercenary and bounty hunter style characters, such as Kyle Katarn and the infamous Boba Fett.
• Predators (2010) - Royce, the protagonist of the movie, is a mercenary.
• The Expendables (2010) - An ensemble action-war film about a group of elite mercenaries who are sent on a mission to overthrow a dictator in a South American country. Starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• Mercenaries (2011) - A war drama film starring Billy Zane and Kirsty Mitchell about a group of Mercenaries sent to the Balkans to rescue the US ambassador and his aid.
• The Dark Knight Rises (2012) - Supervillains Bane and Ra's al Ghul (prior to becoming the head of the League of Shadows) are portrayed as mercenaries.
• The Expendables 2 (2012) - An ensemble action-war film sequel to The Expendables (2010) about a group of elite mercenaries who undertake a seemingly simple mission which evolves into a quest for revenge against rival mercenary Jean Vilain, who murdered one of their own and threatens the world with a deadly weapon. Starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Chuck Norris, Randy Couture, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Liam Hemsworth, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.