This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Taking a look at the DVD case for this, you read a whole different text than what this movie actually is. The DVD case presents a movie that is a romantic action adventure, a children's movie (rated PG) or at least family movie about a hero who gets the girl and everything turns out all right in the end.This movie is rated PG.We open on a boy and his dog, idyllic, playful, nothing to worry about. The music is friendly, the colors are friendly, the land is friendly, everything is perfect. Then a gunshot rings out and the dog falls dead. The boy runs to a villa, where he watches his family get raped and murdered, all very bloody, violent, and horrifying (much like the same type of violence in A Clockwork Orange, actually).This movie is rated PG.We follow this boy's journey through life, not as an action adventure, but as an epic... the story of a man who, after the trauma of his family's near complete destruction, is sent away to Rome to escape the made-up South American land of Corteguay, where he transistions between being an adulterist playboy (much like a less liked and less proactive James Bond, which is interesting because the director made Moonraker), to an apathetic, bitter nigh-rapist, to the potential savior of Cortequay who is only used and abused by its leaders until he himself falls victim and nothing changes for the better.This movie is rated PG.We follow a whole melange of extra characters as they move through their either abused, poor life without happiness, or their empty, corrupted life as the rich, and how they all intermix and intermingle to create a land, Corteguay, that is constantly at war with itself, and how they all add to it their own violence.This movie is rated PG.We follow playboys into S&M dungeons (again, imagery very alike A Clockwork Orange), young boys becoming men by shooting down rows of prisoners with automatic machine guns, women without control of their independence, civil leaders claiming that "There must be a cohesion of evil and politics," revolutionaries who rape, pillage, plunder, and massacre; prostitute nuns, apathetic heroes, unstimulating sex (and lots of it), children getting killed, and the beauty of civilization and nature juxtaposed with explosions and grimacing Gothic architecture, idealistic moments ALWAYS ended suddenly with pronounced, crippling pain.This movie is rated PG.I'll go out on a limb here and say that it's probably likely nobody likes this movie. It's not likable. It's well done, but clocking in at just over 3 hours of watching the horrors of humanity being committed again and again while our unsympathetic hero has sex with everything with two legs and makes a living off of it... Even if it was marketed correctly, it wouldn't be approached correctly.--PolarisDiB

I have read Harrold Robbins' book 4 times. When I recently viewed the film I expected to see all kinds of changes from what was in the book. I was actually amazed to see that the film followed closely to what was written except for a few story alterations that were obviously unavoidable. The book was a lot more decadent than was depicted by the film. However, the film was very well cast with excellent acting by everyone. I was really pleased that the film conveyed the spirit of the book to the end. I just acquired the DVD which is the original R rated version for international release. It runs a full 177 minutes. Obviously, this picture could not have been shown in American theaters in 1970 when the film was made. Even though the film is 35 years old it is not dated. My copy is a Panavision widescreen copy with full Dolby 5.1 Surround stereo sound and it plays as if it was a newly produced film. If you are lucky enough to acquire this version of the film watch it again. I'm sure you will be really pleased especially if you have a "Home Theatre" with a large wide screen.

A real treat...if you're a masochist. Bekim Fehmiu is "Dax," the son of a counter-revolutionary from a fictional South American country who beds loose women, rich women, elderly women, and so on. All done in the name of keeping his homeland free from tyranny. In addition to Fehmiu, whose career seems to have evaporated, THE ADVENTURERS features the likes of Candice Bergen, Charles Aznavour, Olivia De Havilland, and Fernando Rey, all at their very worst. Ernest Borgnine, with jet-black hair and frito-bandito accent, plays Dax's bodyguard. Every lurid cliché in the book is assembled for this trashy adaptation of the Harold Robbins novel: murder, rape, assassination, lesbianism, miscarriage, adultery.

I liked this movie when I first saw it in the UK. It was R rated and deserved to be. Definitely for mature audiences. Don't know why it was released as PG rated in US. Lost some of its mature content and bite as a result.