Sweepers

Set in Africa, Sweepers is the story of one's man's fight against the illegal and destructive use of land mines. Given this subject matter, we are going to eschew our usual wisecracks. Landmines are no laughing matter. According to the International Committee to Ban Landmines (ICBL), the 1997 co-laureate for the Nobel Peace Prize*:

"Landmines are now a daily threat in Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia, Cambodia, Chechnya, Croatia, Iraq, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Somalia, and dozens of other countries. Mines recognize no cease-fire and long after the fighting has stopped they continue to maim or kill. Mines also render large tracts of agricultural land unusable, wreaking environmental and economic devastation. Refugees returning to their war-ravaged countries face this life-threatening obstacle to rebuilding their lives."

"What makes antipersonnel mines so abhorrent is the indiscriminate destruction they cause. Mines cannot be aimed. They lie dormant until a person or animal triggers their detonating mechanism. Antipersonnel mines cannot distinguish between the footfall of a soldier and that of a child.

Those who survive the initial blast usually require amputations, long hospital stays, and extensive rehabilitative services.
In Cambodia alone there are over 35,000 amputees injured by landmines--and they are the survivors. Many others die in the fields from loss of blood or lack of transport to get medical help. Mine deaths and injuries in the past few decades total in the hundreds of thousands."

Many of you may recall that Princess Diana was active in the fight to ban landmines before her untimely death. Other groups are also involved in this campaign, including Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres), winner of the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize. Those of us who live in countries not marred by war have a hard time imagining the horror and devastation war can bring. Landmines are but one of the hellish legacies of humanity's inhumanity.

At least one unkind reviewer accused the producers of Sweepers of shamelessly exploiting the topic (there is a banner at the beginning of the film commenting on the problem of land mines) but our attitude is: we cannot know what was in the mind of the producers and neither can other reviewers. Any movie that draws attention to this tragic situation, no matter what the motivation or or how mediocre the film is OK with us.

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Christian Erickson, played by Dolph Lundgren, a "sweeper" who finds and disarms landmines, is recruited to hunt down those responsible for manufacturing a new and particularly vicious landmine, a design stolen from the US. Down on his luck and embittered by the death of his young son in a landmine accident, Erickson is a somewhat reluctant hero. He is urged to action by an investigator/artillery expert played by Claire Stansfield, who at 6'2" makes a good match for giant Lundgren. Claire will look familar to Xena fans; she played the ultra-evil recurring character Alti. Bruce plays Christian's friend Dr. Cecil Hopper, a humanitarian physician working selflessly to help victims of land mines in an African hospital. Or is he?...

We 're not going to say any more about the plot. There's lots of violence; most critics think the movie is bad, not well-directed and that Lundgren is tired. Well, his character is supposed to be tired. You'd feel pretty lousy too in this character's shoes. As for Bruce, what can we say, he is charming, gorgeous (looking a lot like Jurgen in this film as the accompanying pics show), and plays the several facets of his role with his usual aplomb. As other reviewers have commented, Bruce Payne gives his all no matter what the script.

There are basically two reasons to watch this movie in our opinion. Bruce is number one. As always. The other is the lesson we hope you will extract from the film: the landmines are ugly reminders that war is a descent into hell, that humans are capable of horrendous and unspeakable evil. As we go about our comfortable, safe lives, we would do well not to forget this lesson. If we do nothing and don't care about the plight of others less fortunate, if we glorify war and beat our unthinking "patriotic" drums no matter what the cost, we run the risk of contributing to that evil. Pardon us if we are a little preachy but this issue touches us. We told you we were going to be serious.