Finally watched this grand action English film "Lion of The Desert-Omar Mukhtar ", which was in my bucket list since long. This Moustapha Akkad film is based on the great Libyan freedom fighter- Omar Mukhtar who formed a formidable Arab force against the powerful Italian army. The film was funded by Libyan government led by Gaddafi way back in 1981 so that the world gets to know about the revolt in ???? Libya. The film shows real many historical facts about Mussolini’s fascism, Italian army atrocities, the battle of Kufra and the final execution of Omar. Anthony Quinn is just excellent as Omar and gets into skin of the character. The film has amazing battle scenes, huge canvas and is quite an engaging watch. This was the second big collaboration of Akkad and Quinn after the awesome historical The Message.
Back home in Bollywood, when Samantas made Jackie Shroff’s actioner Palay Khan based on the Pashtun freedom fighter, they took huge inspiration and in fact even shot several scenes similar to this grand film.