Kommissar X - Drei grüne Hunde

Kill Me Gently, my first Kommissar X movie, is actually the fourth in the series. My unfamiliarity with the already established characters might account for some of my confusion, but I suspect that bad storytelling and crap editing are more to blame.

This silly Bond-inspired secret agent/crime caper revolves around a stash of LSD brought to Turkey by the Americans for military purposes (what they intend to do with it is anyone's guess). A gang of criminals called the Green Hounds will do anything to get their hands on the acid, leaving NYPD Captain Tom Rowland (Brad Harris) and private detective Jo Walker (Tony Kendall) to try and stop them.

The first hour of this film is so poorly strung together that it is almost impossible to follow and proves very difficult to sit through, with only the local colour and some pretty girls to keep one interested. Make it past the hour mark, however, and things do get a little better, as the action moves to a desert region known as The Valley of 1000 Hills, where the good guys do battle with the baddies, resulting in some fairly well-executed stunt sequences.

There's a fun scene in which one of our good guys (I don't remember who) is pursued over the hills, but escapes by sliding down the sandy slopes on his butt, and we also get an impressive motorcycle chase over the same undulating terrain, the bikes hurtling through valleys, up and around natural banks, and over peaks. It's an entertaining final act, although an extremely dumb closing moment involving a talking camel sums up the film as a whole: very silly, with little concern for logic.

This film begins in Istanbul with a private detective named "Joe Walker" (Tony Kendall) visiting a small nightclub where he is attempting to gather information concerning a large batch of LSD which was recently stolen from the American military by an international syndicate known as "the Green Hounds". Not surprisingly, Joe's sudden presence at the nightclub soon becomes a cause for concern which leads the girlfriend of the syndicate boss to order one of the employees to slip some LSD into his drink. Fortunately, although he is tricked into drinking it, he manages to escape before they can kill him and eventually recovers with the help of his old colleague "Captain Tom Rowland" (Brad Harris). It's then that the two join forces in a effort to find and recover the stolen merchandise before the Green Hounds have the opportunity to disperse it throughout Europe. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I thought that this 4th film in the "Kommissar X" series was one of the better entries as the action and the plot were more evenly balanced. Likewise, having several attractive actresses like Sabine Sun (as the duplicitous girlfriend named "Joyce Sellers"), Christa Linder ("Gisela"), Olga Schoberova ("Leyla Kessler") and Rossella Bergamonti ("Jenny Carter") certainly didn't hurt in any way either. In any case, I liked this particular sequel and have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

The fourth edition of this free-wheeling franchise is still full of energy and vitality, although I found the plot development was rather ragged at times, with some components not always stitched together as smoothly as one might hope for.

Turkey provides the requisite exotic locations this time, firstly history soaked Istanbul, and later, via the magic of cinema, the spectacular rock formations and cave dwellings of Cappadocia are suddenly within easy driving distance.

Istanbul has always been a classic location for espionage stories and has become almost overused in more recent times (The World Is Not Enough, The International, Skyfall, Taken 2, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and now Mission Impossible; Dead Reckoning) but back in the 1960s, it was still relatively fresh, particularly from an action movie standpoint. "From Russia With Love" in 1963 and the heist movie "Topkapi" that came out in 1964, may have attracted the producers' attention.

The action scenes continue to make inventive use of the locations, whether running across the rooftops of Istanbul, zig-zagging between the domes, or sliding down the channels between the wind-scoured rocky spires and chasing dirt bikes along the steep ridges or around the bases of same.

The fight scenes continue to be well choreographed, although now trending toward the more comedic style familiar to the English speaking World as "Trinity" or "Terrence Hill & Bud Spenser" style, which began to emerge about this time.

Instead of just the customary bantering duo, this time around they add a third likeable hero, who contributes just as much as the regulars to defeating the villains. Tony and Brad are joined by Rudolf Zehetgruber who played Barrett, the animal collecting landowner in "Three Golden Cats". He returns here, with a significantly beefed up role. His name is now Almann, a vet who lives on a boat, so he still loves animals and has a few around, including the bear cub from his previous appearance.

As usual there are numerous beautiful women, which are sometimes quite hard to keep track of, I must admit I found "Jenny" (Rossela Bergamonti) and "Leyla" (Olga Schoberova) hard to tell apart, but I think Jenny ended up in hospital for the duration just about the time Leyla first appears. They are both involved inadvertently, after witnessing something they shouldn't. Sabine Sun is one of the main villains, while Christa Linder, who shows up to drag Tony out of trouble a couple of times, is out for revenge, having had the customary sibling killed by the villains (in this case a brother). As usual Tony flirts a lot, but never gets the girl, although once he returns to his room to find Rossela in his bed, however she has been drugged unconscious by the baddies, and later he shares a bath with a naked Olga, but it's only to help him hide from the police and he remains fully clothed.

The MacGuffin is a container of LSD which the villains want to steal and sell to a buyer, who may or may not want to use it to disable NATO forces. The main villain is of the surprise twist variety, so I won't say anymore, which means the three henchpersons do most of the heavy lifting, action wise. As in "Death Be Nimble" there is a big powerful one, played this time by the appropriately named "Samson" Burke (born Samuel in real life) who is shown to be an expert oil wrestler, a crafty, slippery one, played by Herbert Fux and the third is the aforementioned Sabine Sun. All make a colourful impression in their roles.

With the help of Turkish NATO forces (and a donkey) the traditional battle royale (with cheese) against the Villain's tribe of bandit allies is won and the baddies all get their just desserts.

Captain Tom delivers $1 mil worth of LSD to operatives in Istanbul that a criminal organization is pulling out all the stops to get its hand on. Joe joins him in Istanbul to foil the organization's efforts. Lots of unnecessary martial arts fighting and cartoonish dialog spoil the otherwise enjoyable exotic backdrop. The plot is weak and the action discontinuous. The movie ends up in the enemy stronghold in the "Valley of a Thousand Hills, a terrific location for some exciting action. This adventure is stocked with numerous attractive women who do little more than provide the expected decorative flavor. Best approached as more of a parody than serious thriller.

Another entry in the tongue-in-cheek espionage series "Kommissar X", with the amiable duo of Tony Kendall and Brad Harris in the leads. This time their mission is to shut down an LSD smuggling ring that operates in Istanbul. And the first half of this movie is, probably, about as coherent as an actual LSD trip, but, again probably, not half as much fun. When the setting switches to "The Valley of the Thousand Hills", the film gets a little better, and more action-packed. The production is actually pretty slick and there is good stuntwork throughout; Brad Harris' slide down the hills and his fight with an extra-muscular henchman are high points. And even though the heroes keep making remarks like "It's going to be difficult to escape, especially with the girls", the girls are quite capable of taking care of themselves. This is the 4th "Kommmissar X" film I have watched so far; the best remains the first, "Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill" (also the one most closely modelled on the James Bond series). ** out of 4.