One of the more remarkable aspects about director Ian Sharp's garrote-taut hostage thriller is not only how well the gritty, flint-edged film holds up, but in today's divided world of political ferment, with clearly so little altered in the higher echelon's continued abuses of power, the crass media obfuscation, 'Who Dares Wins' (1982) continued relevance is additionally damning. Reginald Rose's lean, perfectly paced screenplay places our uncommonly heroic he-man Captain Peter Skellen (Lewis Collins) at the fulminating center of a well-funded, far from slumbering anti-nuclear terrorist cell, imperiously masterminded by intractable zealot Frankie Leith (Judy Collins) the unrelenting tension increases as Skellen embeds himself ever deeper into this murderous conspiracy, his covert solo mission fraught with myriad dangers, not only to himself, his lovely wife Jenny (Rosalind Lloyd) and new born baby Samantha but, perhaps, the continued peace of the western world.
All too few action thrillers are both intelligent and unflinchingly bellicose, the exciting action is breathlessly swift and brutal, no slow-motion languor, precise, surgical, expeditious, kill or be killed, every retaliatory action timed to the millisecond and it is this coolly pragmatic take on violence that is so frequently fetishized today which not only proves immediately striking but exhilarating, while you are well aware this is merely splendidly made escapist entertainment, there is a glacial verisimilitude to the characters steadfast actions, and the morally 'grey' areas of both parties are expertly factored in, this isn't merely just another prosaic, spoon-fed, unquestionably good surmounting Evil, as both protagonist's relentless appropriation of extreme measures to justify their disparate means expose where such terrible power can be abused to suit secret, destructive agendas.
'Who Dares Wins' is a genuinely thrilling film and its classic status is greatly deserved, enlivened by a magnificently propulsive score by the inimitable genius Roy Budd, and never again will we enjoy such an exemplary cast assembled for our sublime cinematic edification: Judy Davis, Edward Woodward, Richard Widmark, with especially refined work by Tony Doyle as bluff, no nonsense Colonel Hadley (SAS), Ingrid Pitt as the terrifyingly tenacious Helga and a truly commanding performance by Lewis Collins who is extraordinarily vivid as indomitable SAS Captain Peter Skellen, effortlessly exuding the fascinating kind of steely integrity one only rarely sees today.
