"Play Dirty" is an uncompromising, darkly comical, and unorthodox film that challenges unspoken truths: War is not an anomaly, but a component of our existence. It's a tragic outcome we've chosen to endure in our shared societal experience. Somewhere, someone is devastatingly displaced from their residence, tormented by forces supported by the United States, and compelled to endlessly drift to accommodate a global power, given they survive the relentless onslaught of military strikes and gunfire.
Rarely is the stark reality presented with such profundity, yet art dares to reflect this, because another reality is evident: it's improbable to persuade the masses about the imperative to cease wars simply because they are ethically objectionable. Numerous aspects of life are ethically questionable - we oppose some, accept others, and war proves too ingrained in American existence to be challenged. It's a notion we conveniently convince ourselves safeguards our liberty.
André de Toth, a Hungarian escapee before World War II, crafted Westerns and films noir in the United States that critiqued American apathy in its commonplace occurrences, as a more subtle, less expressionistic Fritz Lang. He empowered his audience to piece together fragments of a bigger picture revealing deep-seated corruption (As his prominent contemporary disciple, Martin Scorsese eloquently asked, "Can you find the wolves in this picture?"). Yet, none of his creations equaled the darkness of "Play Dirty" in America. For this, he needed the fetters of censorship to be loosened, and societal attitudes to evolve. "Play Dirty" is quintessentially a product of the 1970s, a film constructed in the mold of Robert Aldrich's "The Dirty Dozen," surpassing it in sheer bitterness and audacity. It's a climactic pronouncement from the one-eyed seer of treachery and torment. A man who observed it all, forgot nothing, and feared nobody. This director acknowledged that war is not innate, not what humanity ought to manufacture, and yet, we persist inevitably. We simply cannot cease.
