Director John Irvin certainly gets to grips with Frederick Forsyth's bestseller about mercenaries in Africa, setting in motion some explosive action.

Christopher Walken is a charismatic lead as a mercenary on a covert mission to a strife-torn state, and there's a fine supporting performance from Colin Blakely as a British journalist who befriends him.

The song during the end credits is A. E. Housman's poem Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries set to music.