mophfr This movie is the saddest failure in film history. You have to know that legendary film producer Euan Lloyd accepted to make the film in despite of the fact that insurances refused to cover Richard Burton. It was an ultimate proof of courage and loyalty to a friend, sadly rewarded by a tragedy : Richard Burton died one day before shooting. Burton, before dying, was very enthusiastic about the filming of "Wild Geese II. Something he would have never been if it was to act in an illogical story where he's not the leader anymore (the final movie). Actress Ingrid Pitt is also very clear : it was supposed to be the new big production starring Richard Burton. So it's ridiculous to imagine that Burton would have played the role played by his substitute Edward Fox (who plays his brother in the film) : it's true in only a few scenes. Most of Richard Burton's dialogs are in fact delivered by Scott Glenn, who plays the leading mercenary in the final version. The sniper is definitively NOT a role invented for Burton to take in account the fact that he had difficulties to walk (he had a surgery on his spine at the beginning of 1984) : it was in the book ! But reliable sources effectively claim that Burton would have been the sniper. But if Burton plays the role of Edward Fox, he's not the leader anymore and the story is ridiculous (like in the shot movie). So : where is the truth ? In fact Burton would have been the sniper in the first part of the movie. If you re-watch the film, you can see Edward Fox limping like Burton would have done it because of his surgery : Faulkner meets the Lukas' at EBC in London, the second interview between Glenn and the Lukas was in fact the continuation of Faulkner's: Burton's Faulkner would have accepted the mission of course and then hired immediately Haddad in London to help him. They exchange in London the funny dialogs about Faulkner's leg that you hear in the final movie when they come back to Berlin, after that they fly together to Berlin. All this is not in the book and was found out to let Glenn handle the action scenes (with still Burton as the logical leader of the mission). So in the script, in Berlin, Glenn jogs around the Spandau Prison under Faulkner's protection (hidden as a sniper somewhere in a building). Faulkner reports to Kathy at the stadium, then again Scott Glenn-Haddad visits the barracks for a closer observation of Spandau. When he leaves, some people try to kidnap him. In the final film he's kidnapped, but here Faulkner (still the sniper) shoots to save him, Haddad manages to escape but Faulkner not (because of his leg) and is quickly found, taken, violently interrogated and left for dead on the highway. You understand also that if Faulkner doesn't meet Reed-Henry at the hospital, it complicates unnecessarily the story. Unnecessarily because Burton could have played these scenes without a problem (except his limping, he was at his peak) and it's the leader of the mission who has to talk to the key characters who could help to organize the escape. Faulkner would have then re-met Kathy and explained to her that he has to be forgotten a little after these assassination attempt that he survived and goes to Bavaria before he meets again with Haddad in Munich. From there, the 3 of them (Faulkner, Kathy, Haddad) go back to Berlin. Faulkner is for one last time the sniper in the Turkish alley : he asks Haddad to lead Stroebling's men to that place and the final shooting is in the movie. From that very moment : if you let Faulkner keeping on being the sniper, the colonel Faulkner isn't the leader anymore and lets Glenn handling the dialog scenes. A nonsense that you can experience in the final version : Glenn delivers very poorly his dialogs and makes the movie look like a slow TV-movie, Burton would have set all these scenes under high tension. Again : re-watch those scenes, all of them are decisive and superbly written for an actor like Burton. On the contrary, Glenn would have attacked alone the warehouse towards the end, while Burton would have taken the lead on the accident's site. In fact, from the moment they return to Berlin, Glenn would have played almost exactly (except in the Turkish alley and in Austria at the end)the role of Edward Fox (who just took Burton's clothes and nothing else). That second part of the movie would have been very close to the novel. Of course : many scenes would have been far more spectacular. The helicopters that you see on the poster drawn for the movie starring Burton are absent from the final film but would have appeared towards the end : before the attempt to free Hess, there was supposed to be a massive operation of the British army (a simulated reaction to a Russian invasion, a training, but at a large scale in the conditions of reality, where the army has to evacuate British families from Berlin and so on...). It was Reed-Henry's idea to help the mercenaries to take advantage of that confusion during their own rescue operation. All this disappeared. But you could find many other examples like that by reading the book. Carney's novel is a masterpiece wonderfully respected by Reginald Rose. I really hope that this review helped you to imagine the pure masterpiece Euan Lloyd was about to deliver along with Richard Burton, Reginald Rose and Roy Budd (his music for that film is one of the most powerful themes ever composed in cinema history).

verbusen I'm not rating this a 9 of 10 compared to ALL the masterpiece films ever made, no this is not in the realm of a 2001 a Space Odyssey or such, but I got into this enough for the action genre to give it a 9 of 10 rating. The 4 score on IMDb is way under what it should be, so I'll try to justify why it's rated so low. I am imagining people are comparing it to The Wild Geese and why wouldn't you? The movie poster says they are back on another mission. Trouble is no one in the first film is in this one, nor has it anything to do with Africa. So don't watch this as a sequel because it's not. It's barely a mercenary film, it's more of a caper/ espionage film. There are several "Oh Crap" moments I had watching this, which makes it cool in my book, I mean The Wild Geese had like one of those when they blow up the bridge and the rest was pretty formulaic, I do not want to compare this to WG though as I loved that film also, I'm just saying that this film is not formulaic at all, it will surprise you, at least two or three times, trust me. Edward Fox replays his Day Of The Jackal role to an extent, and Scott Glenn is at the peak of his bad as*ness career. If you are looking for eye candy from Barbara Carrera you won't find anything, she is there to mainly get in the way but she's not annoying so it's still all good, just don't look for her to flash anything, she is bundled up throughout the film (at least the cut I watched). This film if I could give you an idea of what it felt like, it really reminded me of "The Dogs Of War' in it's grittiness. I'm happy I tuned into this 4.6 rated action film, it's probably the best 4.6 rated film I'll see in years. I rate it a 9 out of 10.

Filmfandave An American TV network hires a group of mercenaries to spring the notorious high-rank Nazi officer and war criminal Rudolf Hess who is being held at Spandau Prison, East Berlin. The purpose is to elicit secrets about Hitler and his Nazi Party that have not been revealed to the world and, simultaneously, raise the popularity of the TV network itself. Haddad (Scott Glenn), an American mercenary heads the squad with another British mercenary Faulkner (Edward Fox).The mission gets complicated as other parties like the KGB and another mercenary group try to sabotage the plan, eventually leading to the lost of lives of Haddad's men and endangering the life of the target man Hess.This film was a bomb when it played at the cinemas because a lot of viewers had the misconception of what they would see and expected wall-to-wall, masculine battle scenes like those in THE WILD GEESE. The other reason was that the leading cast was not super stars: Scott Glenn was an up-and-coming star then and Edward Fox's career had dwindled. Barbara Carrera was only cast as an eye candy, though she is billed second in the opening sequence. And finally the plot itself that sounds ridiculous.I watched it on video when I was 13 and didn't like it either. But having watched it again on DVD recently, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that it was not as bad as I thought it was.The film has a slow, step-by-step build-up that follows the "planning-surveillance-organizing-executing" structure, something like a "Mission Impossible" episode that fits very well with the plot. Modern audiences may not like the lack of tension but viewers who are accustomed to espionage action thrillers of the 70's and 80's will not have much to complain about.Despite some negligible flaws, Scott Glenn, Edward Fox, Laurence Olivier and the others all play their part well. There's also an Irish mercenary Hourigan played by Derek Thompson who chews one of the scenes with Paul Antrim, playing Murphy, a military trainer of the group.The action sequences are sparse but tight inserted in the required scenes: the shootout in the alley, the night raid at the warehouse, and the kidnapping. There are also a few violent scenes involving torture by suffocation, knife cutting a face, two gunshots at the knee and backstabbing ,which are pretty tame by today's standards though.The music by Roy Budd serves the scenes fittingly and even enhances them. Peter R. Hunt's direction moves in a rather slow pace but doesn't bore viewers (of course, you need concentration when watching this because there are some rather confusing sub-plots going on) and eventually takes speed during the last 35 minutes (of the 125 run time). Surprisingly, the locations in East Berlin chosen for this film depict the beauty of the era, not the negative views Westerners used to have in minds about the Eastern block countries at the time.Despite the farcically contrived ending,WILD GEESE II is still an interesting, exciting, and well-executed espionage action thriller not to be watched as a sequel but a film in its own right.

Matthew Kresal The Wild Geese is one of the better action films out there with its combination of a top-notch leading cast, a good supporting cast, a good script and spectacular action sequences. Its sequel in name only, Wild Geese II lacks many of those elements. As a sequel to the original film it is a bit of a let down and otherwise its a typical action film.The original film had the wonderful combination of Richard Burton, Roger Moore, and Richard Harris. Now Burton was set to return for this film before his untimely death. His replacement in this film is Edward Fox who plays his younger brother Alex. Fox is the real lifeblood of this film. He has a wonderful sense of humor in his character and he is believable as the brother to the Burton character. Fox, however, doesn't show up as much as his co-stars and that is a real shame.Why is it a shame? Because while Scott Glenn and Barbara Carrera are good actors, they lack chemistry. Glenn is not a leading man and it takes considerable effort to watch him throughout the entire film when he spends whole scenes by himself. While Carrera starts off being an intelligent and self-sufficient character, she ends up turning into a full-out damsel in distress by the time the film is over with. While this can't be entirely blamed on her, Carrera does little to improve upon the material. The supporting cast is mixed. Kenneth Haigh is rather convincing as Colonel Reed-Henry as is Robert Webber as TV network owner Robert McCann. John Terry lacks much acting chops as Michael Lukas. But the real star of the supporting cast is the cameo (for lack of better description) by Laurence Olivier as Rudolf Hess. Olivier appearance is brief, during the finale of the film, but his scenes with Fox, Glenn, and Carrera makes the two hour running length of the film seem worthwhile. When compared to the script and action sequences of the original film, this film is definitely lacking. Despite having been written by the same screenwriter, the films plot lacks both the punch and realism of the original. One might find that because of the change in locations from Africa to Cold War Berlin but the film still lacks realism. Not to mention that thee is really a lack of action in this film. Whiel the first film was not exactly loaded with action either, at least it had a huge set-up for an even bigger pay off at the end. this film has a massive set up and virtually no pay off. There is no large rescue action set-piece. Instead we are given a very bad looking car wreck followed by an improbable escape from East to West. So despite having an excellent Edward Fox and Laurence Olivier, Wild Geese II lacks in everything that the first film had. the film becomes a cardboard action / espionage film that lacks both intelligence and realism. It is a sequel in name only and if you love the original, you might want to stay away from this film. You are likely to be disappointed.