King Rat

British soldiers, together with a handful of US Americans and Australians, are incarcerated in Chengi prison, Singapore. They move about relatively free but are kept in check by the ocean and jungle.

The POWs are gaunt and wearing tethered clothes, except for the US Corporal King who has established quite the florishing black market business. The soldiers he shares his hut with cater to his every whim, as they do profit off of his sense of business and survival. King pays off a number of other soldiers and gives them cuts of his earnings.

When he spots a British soldier, Marlowe, who is quite adapt in communicating with the enemy soldiers, he offers to employ him as a translator. Marlowe is not interested at first but eventually succumbs to the charms and the slightly better life offered to friends of King. The one trying to keep everyone in check and make sure that each soldier gets his fair share of rations is British Lt. Grey, who is almost too straight for his own good.

One way that Marlow profits from his friendship with King is that when he gets severely injured and is in danger of losing his arm to gangrene, it is King that pays for the medication needed to prevent the amputation.

But the end of the war also puts an end to King's reign. He - like the rest of them - has to go back to his real life, where his position is surely not as special as in the camp.

Not too spectacular but very well acted, I thought. King is played by George Segal, Grey by Tom Courtenay and Marlowe by James Fox (who I have been seeing quite a lot of lately....).

8/10