Truly Dreadful Film

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Here's yet another jungle adventure yarn from Antonio Margheriti, following on from his previous Warbeck quartet. While this movie lacks Warbeck, it makes up for his absence by having a great exploitation cast to die for. I thoroughly enjoyed this action-packed adventure yarn which may be cheesy, far-fetched and predictable, but is nonetheless violent, and showcases some top actors going through their motions as they struggle for survival in the jungle. Probably the main disappointment is the music, which, as the credits proudly proclaim, is produced on Yamaha keyboards! The film begins with a shoot-em-up in the dark scene. I don't know what relevance it bears to the rest of the film, but it starts the move in an action-packed way so I'll let it pass. We are initially introduced to the characters at a bigwig meeting presided over by the immortal Ernest Borgnine. Why immortal? Well, he always seems to keep on making films and never letting his age worry him! Borgnine here is the team leader, so his job is to fret behind a desk for the film's course. Sadly he doesn't engage in any of the action in the movie.Pretty soon, Margheriti's obsession with miniature effects comes into play during a car chase, in which cars fly up the walls of a tunnel. Hilariously these are matchbox models by the look of it, and are easily spotted due to the lack of people in the supposed vehicles! Pointless stuff, but it's fun anyway. Shortly afterwards, our hero Wesley (Lewis Collins) assembles his team and ventures into the jungle at night. The first action scene is an attack on a village, and contains a hilarious moment where a soldier jumps through the roof of a thatched hut and gets a huge spike through his arm! Surely the door would have been a better bet.The film gets better as it goes on, and the next action sequence is to steal a helicopter and is very well done. It isn't anything you won't have seen before, but there's lots of bloody death and incessant shots of guards tumbling out of guard towers. Oh yeah, and around a dozen bad guys get knives thrown into their chests for variety. The film climaxes at around the halfway mark with a successful attack on the enemy base which culminates in our heroes' helicopter being destroyed - big surprise.They then have to make their way on foot to another enemy base and destroy that as well. Along the way they stop briefly at a jungle church (!) run by none other than Margheriti's old friend Luciano Pigozzi as the priest. Pigozzi is just one of the familiar faces to reappear from Margheriti's previous movies. The native guy from TIGER JOE is also here. Keep your eyes peeled and you'll see the witch doctor from HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN COBRA as a prisoner in one brief shot. This goes to show that, like with Hammer Studios, Margheriti tended to employ the same actors again and again in his films.Well, the enemy shows up and Pigozzi gets attacked in the film's most horrific scene, enlivened by the quality acting. This is probaby one of Pigozzi's finest moments. Our heroes continue, their numble dwindling all the while, stopping briefly to blow up a (miniature) train and unsuccessfully negotiate a minefield. The excellent finale sees an all-out assault on the enemy base, and a surprise traitor attacking.Lewis Collins is rather bland as the film's hero, but not a total loss. He tries to be David Warbeck for a lot of the time but doesn't have the same laidback charm. Spaghetti western icon Lee Van Cleef pops up in one of his last appearances as an ex-con helicopter pilot and delivers a solid performance as usual. Borgnine's role is limited but he's there for name value alone. Former giallo star Mimsy Farmer is also around as an opium addict-turned-gunfighting hero. Finally, we have Klaus Kinski doing his patented psycho shtick, at one point drilling a corpse with his machine gun and going berserk! Good stuff, and a fine action/war film which is easy on the brain but looks good and has lots of shooting and explosions for those who like them. Personally, I found this to be a superior action flick and I recommend it to all.

Antonio Margheriti (that's the linguine Anthony Dawson) directs this in-name only second sequel to "The Wild Geese", with ex-Professionals' Lewis Collins as the indomitable Commander Robin Wesley (a very masculine sounding name befitting the tough guy profile), and his band of rag-tag mercenaries as they venture into the jungles of Borneo or thereabouts for a supposedly benign mission to bust an opium operation. But the evil, double crossing Charleton (crazy-eyed Kinski) is playing both sides, and the group find themselves taking refuge in a mission with language assistance from expatriate American (Farmer) as they search for an escape route.Glorious colour tones, stylish costumes and jazzy synthesisers give this jungle war opus the Armani makeover that was en vogue at the time. Collins' suave sophistication and stiff upper lip as he delivers painfully awkward dialogue is so artificial, it's cringe worthy. Ernest Borgnine looks sedated in his brief cameo, while Kinski, conversely, is so over the top, he's hilarious. Only Van Cleef offers some restraint, but he's a passenger. The set designers, special effects crew and pyrotechnic personnel showed flair with their multitude of explosions, and the bodies blown apart in gory detail give it that Euro-trash touch you've come to expect.But while the action sequences are fluent and well constructed, and the general gist of the film is easy to follow, there's still an awful lot of stilted dialogue and overly intense acting. Perhaps as a box set with its younger siblings, this could be a cool if somewhat hokey trilogy. Nice try, but in spite of Collins' penchant for smoking stogies, no cigar.

Italian director Antonio Margheriti serves up another entertaining action flick. The film has a great international cast, great music, great action and some great model effects. Seek this one out and enjoy, if only someone would release a widescreen version in it's correct ratio of 2.35:1. Quentin Tarantino you did it for THE BEYOND now how about for this. I recommend the following titles if you liked this THE LAST HUNTER, TORNADO, COMMANDO LEOPARD, THE COMMANDER and COBRA MISSION.

Code Name Wild Geese is one of those many movies that bases the plot around mercenary action in a jungle; actually, to be fair, given that every cheapo movie seems to have done that in the past few years, at least this was one of the first. (Is ANYONE really interested in mercenary-in-a-jungle movies?) Most of the action is perfunctory, predictable stuff. Lee Van Cleefe is wasted (as usual) in this; Lewis Collins does his hard man routine. This movie wouldn't really be worth commenting on except for the chase scene. It's absolutely hillarious! Collins' character revs his car up in a tunnel when he realizes he's blocked in, and drives sideways, YES SIDEWAYS, along the wall of the tunnel! How does he do this? Well, aside from the fact that this is physically impossible, of course he doesn't... we're treated to a exquisitely appalling display of movie miniatures, intercut with grim expressions on Collin's face. It's priceless and worth the cost of a rental alone.