Code Name: Wild Geese (1986)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Woohoo! Another Antonio Margheriti jungle actioner, this one starring Lewis Collins (from Commando Leopard!) and Klaus Kinski (from Commando Leopard!) and Lee Van Cleef (from Death Rides a Horse etc) and Ernest Borgnine (from also good eighties action film Skeleton Coast) and Mimsy Farmer (from the Black Cat, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, that Pink Floyd film and other stuff). I'm knackered from thinking of all those films those folks were in. Goodnight! This one isn't as good as Margheriti's The Last Hunter, but then I'm hard pressed to think of a better action film than that, but it's on a par with Commando Leopard, suffering slightly from the lack of John Stiener being a Glaswegian, but then helped by a depressingly old looking Lee Van Cleef as a helicopter pilot and helped immensely by eternally middle aged and jolly Ernest Borgnine. These guys are all on hand to help out Lewis Collins, a soldier heading for the jungle of some country I couldn't quite figure out in order to destroy drug factories! Collins and Cleef and a few other jungle warfare guys head off for the jungle and start blowing the absolute crap out of everything, picking up a junky Mimsy Farmer on the way. She's doesn't have too much to do in this one I'm afraid, but then again it's all about the action and less about the acting, so let's get to the bit where I mention the helicopter with the flamethrower attached.Near the end the get double crossed by either Borgnine or Kinski (you guess which one) and can only escape by wasting scores of bad guys and countryside with a flame thrower attached to a helicopter. Margheriti gets to break out his famous miniature sets at this point (and also during a really daft car chase near the start) but you can't mark the guy down for effort.This is yet another impossible-not-to-enjoy Italian trash film made by one of Taratino's heroes. I wonder why he never takes the hint and makes a decent action film with barely any dialogue?

"Horror Castle" director Antonio Margheriti's "Code Name: Wild Geese" with Lewis Collins and Lee Van Cleef qualifies as an explosive, action-packed, but formulaic military actioneer about hard-nosed mercenaries dispatched with the blessings of the DEA to destroy an evil Asian general's opium factory in the Golden Triangle. Predictably, complications arise, and everybody finds themselves in for a considerably more difficult mission than they were prepared for from the outset. Although it is not related to the 1978 Richard Burton epic "The Wild Geese" or its tardy sequel "Wild Geese II," the Tito ("Tentacles") Capri, Gianfranco ("The Last Hunter") Couyoumdjian, and Michael Lester screenplay clearly borrows elements from the two earlier films, but rearranges them so there are enough differences. The rugged cast includes Ernst Borgnine, Klaus Kinski, Mimsy Farmer, Manfred Lehmann, and Frank Glaubrecht. Margheriti and cinematographer Peter Baumgartner lensed this actioneer on location in Hong Kong and lush jungles of the Philippines. Some of the action scenes, such as a fast-paced car chase through a tunnel under construction and most of the explosions that occur in long shot are done with cost-saving miniatures, as Margheriti did with his Karen Black & Lee Major's thriller "Killer Fish." "Code Name: Wild Geese" is nothing memorable, but it is done with a lot of savvy and Kinski's fake elite British accent make it worthwhile, especially if you're in the mood for a shoot'em up with no shortage of explosions and a high body count. One of the last scene when our hero attaches a flamethrower to a helicopter skid and burns up everything and everybody at an opium plant gives it an edge.Captain Robin Wesley (Lewis Collins of "The Final Option") is a top-notch mercenary who trains his men under conditions as close to actual combat as he can. Obviously, Margheriti and his scenarists pilfered the first scene from the Andrew V. McLaglen thriller "ffolks" with Roger Moore whose title character keeps his mercenaries on their toes with similar exercises. Wesley is called in by his employer, Baldwin (Wolfgang Pampel) to blow the smithereens out of a opium factory run by a ruthless, bald-headed warlord. Fletcher (Ernst Borgnine of "Marty") represents the DEA, and Charlton (Klaus Kinski of "Nosferatu") hangs around as back-up in case Wesley and his men run into trouble. Before the mission begins, Wesley loses his helicopter pilot so he strikes a bargain with the authorities to release Travis (Lee Van Cleef of "For a Few Dollars More") to fly for him. Travis is an expert chopper pilot who has flown in five wars but wound up in prison for smuggling.Initially, everything goes according to plans and our heroes wipe out the opium factory. During the heated combat, Travis leaves his post in the helicopter to help the mercenaries and an adversary smashes the fuel tank, sets the chopper afire, and it blows up. Wesley and company take some casualties, but now they have to march out. The warlord learns about this debacle and sends an army out to make an example of our death-defying heroes. The local guerrillas liberate a bamboo prison nearby and rescue Katy Robson (Mimsy Farmer) who has been held hostage and shot up repeatedly with heroin. They take her with them. Wesley and his men tromp through the jungle and find a priest (Peter Lorre look-alike Luciano Pigozzi of "Baron Blood") running a mission. At this point, our heroes learn that there is a second opium factory and a train that delivers the narcotics. While they are away blowing up the train when it crosses a bridge, the warlord's army storms the mission, kills everyone, and crucifies the priest. Eventually, back at mission headquarters, Fletcher and Charlton figure that no news is good news and decide that our heroes must have lost their helicopter. Charlton arranges for back-up and leads it into the jungle on a motorized riverboat with a squad of well-armed thugs. Everything changes radically when Charlton hurls himself into the fray.The leads don't have much of a chance to act because the explosions and the thrill-a-minute heroics keep them dodging bullets and shrapnel. "Code Name: Wild Geese" is the conclusion to a successful trilogy that Margheriti started with Lewis Collins and continued with "Commando Leopard" with Klaus Kinski and "The Commander" with Lee Van Cleef and Donald Pleasence.

The plot - A group of highly trained mercenaries are hired to destroy an opium manufacturing plant somewhere in Burma. That's it! Oh well, sometimes simple is best I guess.Whilst far from Antonio Margheriti's best work this film nonetheless provides some cracking entertainment, not least of all due to the great assembled cast here. The Professionals Lewis Collins plays the groups leader and is backed up ably by the likes of genre stalwarts Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Luciano Pigozzi and that great mainstay of madness himself, Klaus Kinski!Plenty of gunfire and big explosions abound along with some of Margheriti's usual cool miniature model work, most notably in a great car chase scene towards the beginning of the movie.Fellow fans of Godfrey Ho ninja movies will delight to see an uncredited Bruce Baron in the cast here to as a laid back member of the group with a predilection for alcohol(!)For Margheriti fans and also those who like a bit of the old mercenary shenanigans you could do a lot worse than to check this one out.

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.