Dir: Antonio Margheriti
Star: Lewis Collins, Lee Van Cleef, Klaus Kinski, Ernest Borgnine
Despite the name, this is only tangentially connected, and entirely unofficially, to The Wild Geese, the all-star mercenary pic starring Roger Moore which had proved quite a hit six years previously. Both films are about groups of mercenaries hired to carry out a hazardous mission in hostile wilderness territory, and have international casts. Indeed, this could perhaps be considered as a “mockbuster” designed to steal the thunder of the original’s official sequel, Wild Geese II, which was released the following year. The topic of mercenaries was still rather current, however, with ‘Mad’ Mike Hoare – the man whose outfit’s name was taken for The Wild Geese – having been hired to stage an unsuccessful coup attempt in the Seychelles a couple of years previously.
This relocates things from Africa to the Far East, in particular the Golden Triangle, then home to much of the world’s opium and heroin supplies. The mercenary group run by Robert Wesley (Collins) is hired by the Western authorities, andDEA operative Fletcher (Borgnine), to go into the jungle and destroy the drug production line of Khan, a local warlord. This is a task near to Wesley’s heart, as he lost his son to heroin addiction. Key to the team is copter pilot China (Van Cleef), who has been released from jail where he sat on smuggling charges, to take part in the operation. The first step is to hijack the warlord’s helicopter, and then use this to help destroy his facilities. While the latter step is accomplished, the copter is blown up in the process, leaving the group to make their way through and out of the jungle on foot, back to civilization.
[Spoilers follow] Inevitably, it turns out that some of the people on the outside are working with and for Khan. The shadiest of all is wealthy American businessman Brenner (Hartmut Neugebauer) and his partner, Charlton, who is himself a former soldier for hire. When Wesley opts to continue the mission and moves towards destroying another plant, thereby threatening the pipeline which Brenner uses to get his drugs out, Charlton is sent into the jungle to make sure that the mercenaries do not succeed. With the entire operation being thoroughly off the books, Wesley is on his own to try and ensure that he and his men are not the ones being cleaned up. And he’s not happy about being betrayed either, especially given the whole ‘dead son’ thing. [End spoilers]
It’s all briskly paced, just about adequately entertaining and staggeringly macho. I think there is only one female speaking role worth mentioning: Mimsy Farmer plays a journalist held hostage by Khan, and turned into a heroin addict. She is rescued by Wesley’s team, and has to go through withdrawal on the way out, probably not the best rehab conditions. Otherwise, it feels like the sort of thing a 12-year-old boy would have loved at the time, with enormous amounts of ammunition being sprayed around by everyone, largely to minimal effect, as well as copious numbers of giant fireballs and a helicopter with a flamethrower mounted to it. The highlight is likely the bit where Wesley drives his car along the side of a tunnel wall, for what seems like miles, in order to escape pursuit. It’s so completely ludicrous as to be utterly brilliant.
At the time this was released, Collins was a considerable star in Britain due to his role in long-running TV series, The Professionals, which had recently ended. A former soldier in the Territorial Army himself, he had also unsuccessfully auditioned as James Bond in 1982. He certainly brings the rugged charm necessary, though Van Cleef – then approaching his sixtieth birthday – feels rather too old to be traipsing through the rain-forest. There’s a point in the middle, after they lose their helicopter, where this could have turned into Predator, and I probably wouldn’t have minded if it had. For to be frank, there’s only so many jungle gun-battles you can watch, with people flinging themselves out of guard towers, before the return on these inevitably begins to diminish.
While never quite sinking to the level of dull, Kinski is undeniably under-used, especially in the first two-thirds of the film, and matters are not helped by the outrageous faux upper-class English accent which he sports in the dubbed version. I’m presuming it’s not him, though it’s mad enough that I could imagine Klaus putting it on, if he was completely pissed-off with the producer for some reason. Fortunately, just when your interest in overall proceedings is perhaps beginning to flag, here comes Charlton, sailing to what Wesley initially believes to be the rescue. Yeah. About that… Kinski then gets to deliver a more enthusiastic, and therefore entertaining, performance – the ability to act while laying down a curtain of suppressing fire should never be forgotten – before meeting his eventual fate.
The technical aspects are good to above-average, with a significant amount of model work and practical explosives work that, to be honest, are probably more impressive than either the script or any of the non-Kinski performances. You’re never given a reason to care about any of the interchangeable mercenaries beyond Wesley, and even there, Collins’s portrayal is so flat and wooden, you understand perfectly why he was deemed a possible successor to Roger Moore. Margheriti would re-unite with Collins and Kinski the following year, again under producer Edwin. C. Dietrich (and also featuring a flamethrower enhanced helicopter!), for another jungle caper, Kommando Leopard, relocating proceedings slightly further east to the Philippines. That would make somewhat better use of Kinski’s talents. The director would then finish off his trilogy for Dietrich with The Commander, which had Collins playing a mercenary one more time – but no Kinski, and reportedly an “almost identical” plot to this.
