Apparently there are good reasons for this film's obscurity status as well as for the low rating on this wondrous website. Richard Harris doesn't nearly whoop as much butt as I expected in this overall dull and completely unmemorable post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi feature from the late 70's. The one strong point this movie benefices from (set pieces) isn't nearly enough to overlook the massive amount of weaknesses (lack of action, miscast players, no script…), but it has to be said the location spotters and set piece designers pulled off an exquisite job. The story may be non-existent and sadly ruining all its potential, at least all the exteriors look very depressing and the scenery appears to genuinely have lived through a nuclear holocaust. The story, as said, is mundane and hardly worth wasting words on. Falk (Harris) and his wife are two of the last few civilized people left in the world, all the rest is either extinct or joined Ravagers clans. When a gang viciously kills his wife (of screen even, damned!), Falk flees towards … nowhere. On his journey chased by the same scum that killed his wife, Falk encounters an army sergeant who went a little mad due to the loneliness, a community of cave people and the new & highly enlightened leader of mankind Rann. "Ravagers" had copious possibilities and could have become a great film, but nothing justifies the script boredom! Falk doesn't even want to avenge the death of his wife? Bah! There may be some famous names in this American production, but without hesitating I prefer the anonymous but violence & spectacle-packed Italian exploitation efforts instead.

I remember having seen this movie before, when I was a kid and it aired on television. But other than the title and the semi-desolate feel RAVAGERS had (because there's quite a lot of people running around in this one), I remembered nothing of it.Let's start with the soundtrack, because in my opinion that's one of the not-so-many merits RAVAGERS has. Occasionally, there's some "post-apocalyptic jazz music" on the soundtrack. Occasionally, there's a few eerie metallic scrapes integrated in the soundtrack. On one occasion, there's a sergeant playing the piano, providing some recreation. Occasionally, there's some good-sounding orchestrated string arrangements. But they sometimes do sound a bit overly dramatic.Now that's actually the main problem with RAVAGERS: It's too melodramatic. The protagonist (Falk, played by Richard Harris) is a loner and the script tries too hard to make you like him. In a post-apocalyptic world, you expect everybody to have at least a little edge, right? But not Falk. The man's just too friendly (admittedly, he does fight when he has to). You can see his girlfriend, Miriam, getting killed by ravaging thugs in the beginning of the movie (well, we don't get too see much, actually), but if you think good Falk will go on a blood-seeking quest for vengeance, you better think again. He just kills one of them (not even the leader) and then starts running. At first aimlessly across the country… But then, these very annoying flashbacks of his girlfriend (that just happen too often in the movie) start reminding him of a place she talked about, called "Genesis" (It's supposed to have fertile ground and women who can still bear children). Will he ever find it? Will the Ravagers ever catch up with him? Who knows… All I know is, that it takes forever for anything to happen in this movie.The opening-scene looks promising, though. Nicely chosen, properly framed, deserted-looking shots of a run-down town set the right tone. But in the end, nothing eventful really happens throughout the rest that follows for 90 minutes. Flak meets different people. All this while the Ravagers are on the search for him. But the violence portrayed in this film, is just too tame and there's not nearly enough of it. I was okay with this kind of western-feeling (as in: Western, the genre) this movie sort of has, but it still remains a slow and rather boring snooze-fest. Ann Turkel does provide some very brief, but welcome nudity in the background during one scene. Her character wants to be Falk's new love-mate, but him rejecting her constantly (because he just can't get over losing his beloved Miriam) became very old, very quick. And at the end, the pay-off to this annoying sub-plot-gag-thing wasn't even redeeming.Ernest Borgnine must have arrived way too late on the set… He is credited as Rann, but he only appears in the middle of the third act. They do built up to the moment he makes his appearance, but he does nothing more then walk into a dining room and deliver a couple of lines. And then, when the action begins, it's: Exit Borgnine. Somewhat comforting where the final 30 minutes of the movie. They were a bit more amusing (the dining room scene, Falk's discovery of the fish having returned to the oceans) and an big old rusty, stranded ship provided a nice setting. But in the end, the third act had a climax with the Ravagers that didn't deliver much more than a bit of fist-fighting, shooting, an explosion thrown in the mix and a neat one-liner coming from Richard Harris about "Genesis".The movie itself, isn't exactly badly put together, not in the over-all narrative structure, neither on a technical level. I could be forgiving and try to appreciate that this movie is about hope in desolate times and friendly people, undeserved and tragically, losing their beloved ones and all… But, I mean, this movie's called RAVAGERS… Get it?Now I know why this movie didn't leave a lasting impression on me when I was a kid.

This is such a pointless exercise... Nothing rings true in this shallow film. A post-apocalyptic world that leaves you totally disinterested. This war not only killed most people and made savages out of them, it also seems to have damaged everyone's brains; the characters act illogically, say nothing when they talk, and seem to live by rules that even mentally-deranged amoebas would object to.When the black guy mentions someone called "Rem" a couple of times, Harris asks him, "Who's this Rem?". The black guy answers, "Rem is Rem". And Harris says "Oh." Oh, well, thank you very much; that's just the answer I was looking for. What kind of bull**** dialogue is this? It sounds like a comedy but isn't.The stupidest aspect, however, is this idea of "the rats" (violent, brutal humans) following Harris throughout the whole film just because he killed one of them out of revenge for them killing his girl! They actually leave their base - their city - and follow him around during the whole film. How they manage to track him down in the end is anyone's guess; after all, Harris didn't tell anyone where he was going and couldn't even if he wanted to because he himself didn't know where he was heading towards. Supposedly they followed his trail by finding remnants of food, bullets and what not - what baloney.The "rats" are lead by a skinny guy who, in reality, couldn't assert himself as leader of a pre-school basketball team, let alone a post-apocalyptic wild bunch such as these "rats". When an attractive woman decides to follow Harris on his way to the elusive "Genesis", he dislikes the idea of her tagging along because, as he puts it, he is a "loner", blablabla.When they find Borgnine's ship (the Rem character) Harris gets into a very silly dialog with him over how the ship is run and so on. Then, at nightfall, the "rats" attack the ship, the ship blows up, the ship's inhabitants escape, and find themselves on the shore the next morning staring at Harris as if he were the new messiah or something. Then the black guy says something about "Genesis" and Harris tells them they'd found it. Brilliant. And that run-of-the-mill soundtrack doesn't help, either.

There are plenty of good ideas here but they are betrayed by lacklustre direction. There is something about these 'last men on Earth' movies that I really enjoy and I am not sure exactly what it is. In common with THE OMEGA MAN and MAD MAX 2, this film posits a future in which a handful of people seem unaffected by that which has wiped out most of the world's population. This is never explained here but it is hinted that a massive global conflict, presumably nuclear, has finished virtually everyone off. It is said that the seas are poisoned and that nothing can grow on land. This gives every opportunity for scenes of scavenging for food and the joy of discovering a couple of unopened tins of peach slices. Unlike NIGHT OF THE COMET and DAWN OF THE DEAD, the holocaust happened many years in the past and thus we have no scenes of glorious looting in deserted shopping precincts. In fact it has been so long that the initial despair has worn off and a new lifestyle has developed. So much so that there are hints of a new mythology: unconnected groups of people all speak of 'Genesis' a place where fish swim in the rivers and fruit grows on the trees. Thinking about it, there is plenty of religious allusion in this film, all the way up to the somewhat abrupt ending.