The Dogs of War

The Dogs of War is a 1980 action-thriller war film directed by John Irvin and starring Christopher Walken, Tom Berenger and Colin Blakely. Based on the 1974 novel of the same name by Frederick Forsyth, it follows a small mercenary unit of soldiers privately hired to depose the president of a fictional African country modeled on Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry, Equatorial Guinea and Angola (as they were in the late 1970s), so that a British tycoon can gain access to a platinum deposit. The title is based on a phrase from William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar: "Cry, 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war."