The Guns and the Fury

An abysmal desert adventure which totally wastes the inherent promise of being set in Persia in 1908, amid early international conflict over Arab land and Gulf oil. What happens is that mercenary Yanks cluster manfully round a single drilling rig, getting furious as swarthy locals, gung-ho Bengal Lancers and dastardly Russians try to give them and each other some pragmatic lessons in gun-power ideology. The history's as risibly re-written as the dialogue; the only woman in sight is inevitably raped by marauding Cossacks; the local hero seems to have graduated from Oxford in guerilla tactics; and two charging horsemen fall dead for every shot fired.