Edward Dmytryk ended his feature directorial career with this rather routine action film which is a little sluggish. The Human Factor was hardly the kind of film that a celebrated director should have gone out on. After all, Dmytryk has such classics as Murder My Sweet, Crossfire, and The Caine Mutiny to his credit.George Kennedy is our hero/protagonist who has his wife and three children executed by terrorists who made his the first targeted family of an extortion plan to kill an American family every three days if the USA does not pony up some large coin of the realm.As Kennedy is a computer programmer working and living in Rome he has access to some real intelligence gathering machinery. Colleagues like John Mills and Rita Tushingham help. Kennedy upsets Italian police inspector Raf Vallone with his pro-active approach and doing his own investigation.The Human Factor is a slow paced film, but it does have a nice action packed climax where Kennedy takes care of business the way Dirty Harry Callahn would. You'll enjoy if you can wait that long.

***SPOILERS*** "Death Wish" like film with the big and as harmless as a Teddy Bear John Kingsdale, George Kennedy, going ballistic when his family is massacred by a gang of international terrorists in their home in Naples Italy. Working for NATO as an electronic expert Kingsdale with the help of his computer expert friend Mike McAllister, John Mills, uses NATO's most state of the art commuter equipment, the ironically named 9/11 computer system, to track down his family's murderers and exact brutal revenge, not justice, on them.Going against his good friend McAllister's advice in letting the law do the job of tracking his family's killers down Kingsdale with an 8% chance, according to he 9/11 computer system, of getting the job done and 92% chance of getting killed in trying goes all out in what seems like a kamikaze like attempt to finish the bloody job that he's about to start. A job that will leave a trail of corpses, terrorists and their victims, that is to end in a bloodbath at the NATO commissary in Naples!Big George Kennedy despite his menacing size seems so out of shape that there's times in many of the movie chase scenes that he looks like he'll collapse from sheer exhaustion in chasing terrorists 100 pounds lighter and 20 years younger then himself. Getting a hold of one of the terrorists leader's the American Taylor, Thomas Hunter, Kennedy or Kingsdale needed a car to catch up with him in that there's no way to convince the audience that he could have done that on his own with just shoe leather! Huffing and puffing his way through the movie where in some scenes it looked like he needed oxygen to stay on his feet the almost out of breath Kingsdale finally gets to the NATO commissary where the terrorist group headed by Palestinian born Kamal, Frank Alvance, is hold up with some 100 hostages. ***SPOILERS*** Going into action before help, the Italian police and NATO forces, can arrive at the NATO commissary by driving a stolen car through it's front entrance Kingsdale blasts away at anything in his gun sights taking out the entire terrorist crew with Kamel the only survivor making a mad dash to the commissary's exits. With the heavy footed, at well over 250 pounds, Kingsdale catching up with him he makes sure that Kamel never gets a chance to stand trial by pumping a full magazine, that he reloaded his 9.mm with, of slugs into him!

I generally don't care for revenge films but this was a rare exception! I did not see it when it was first released, but a few years later while I was working as an American ex-patriot in Saudi Arabia. My family and children were with me in Saudi, and we lived on the local economy, as George Kennedy did in the movie. This movie really hit home with me and a lot of other ex-pats that were overseas at the time! It showed how vulnerable we really were living in a foreign country where we were quite often resented for even being there! I've always been a George Kennedy fan, even though he's probably not the greatest actor of all time. He's a very likable and believable actor that consistently does a good job! I give him and this film both of my thumbs up! I highly recommend this film to anyone that is even thinking about taking a job in a foreign country!

** ENDING SPOILERS (which might save you the bother of watching it!!) **NATO electronics expert Kennedy is out for blood after his family are done in by terrorists, with Mills on hand rather incongruously to give technical advice. The most worrying facet of this appallingly scripted and unprepossessingly staged bit of misanthropic reactionary violence is its marking of the passing of the surely senile Dmytryk; however its apogee of tastelessness is reached in the climactic supermarket shoot-out, replete with women and children cowering on the floor whilst blowsily unlikely 'Lone Wolf' Kennedy riddles his adversaries with very visceral holes amidst a maelstrom of baked beans and soap powder.