George C Scott has always been one of my favourites and he took the directing reins over for himself in this interesting but flawed piece. Actors directing themselves sounds like a good idea, and some have succeeded in the transition. But Scott needed support to make the film comprehensible and he received this from Michael Kahn the editor, whotries to make sense of the story for the viewer by making some rather glaring plot holes more believable than they should be. The film tries to pack too much into its running time and by the end resorts to melodrama in order for the audience to feel sympathy for Scott's character after he has been poisoned, lost his son, and lied to by the military industrial complex in an obvious political cover up right out of the pages of the Washington Post c1976.
The most obvious plothole to me is how slowly Scott comes to the realisation that he was deceived by practically everyone in positions of authority as to the condition of his son, his own health, and what has happened to his farm. Whether this is done to make the story more suspenseful I don't know, but it made me consult my watch more than once to wonder long this was going to go on for before he figured out what the audience was already aware of.
Apart from this if you were brought up like me on 70s cinema like 3 Days of the Condor, Chinatown, and The Godfather Part II, there is something to like about Rage and it's examination of corruption in high places, and the continuing disintegration of the American dream of individual liberty for all.
