L'aigle s'est envolé

Mussolini is rescued by German special forces. Hitler supported by Himmler (Donald Pleasence) has an idea to kidnap British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The one-eyed Max Radl (Robert Duvall) is ordered to command the operation. He recruits IRA member Liam Devlin (Donald Sutherland) in Berlin. Churchill is visiting Studley Constable in Norfolk. Kurt Steiner (Michael Caine) leads a squad of experienced troops from the eastern front. He's weary of the Nazis and tries to save a girl from the cattle train. For that, they are forced to take part in the impossible mission. Devlin sneaks into the country and joins up with sleeper agent Joanna Grey (Jean Marsh). Local Molly Prior (Jenny Agutter) falls for charming Devlin. The squad parachutes in dressed as Polish troops. Opposing them is the pompous US Army Colonel Pitts (Larry Hagman) and his more competent second-in-command Captain Clark (Treat Williams).

This is a fun war high adventure. It's got funny scenes and some good action. The main thing holding it back is the reversal of roles. It's harder to root for the Germans in a WWII movie. It tries very hard to make Michael Caine a hero in this despite the German uniform. The story is highly unlikely but it's not really surreal. Plot believability goes out the window in this one.

The concept of the movie is both great and original but however the execution of it is not exactly done in the best way possible.

The movie starts of very slow and even perhaps a bit boring. Thankfuly the second halve of the movie is much better once the action and story really start and take more pace and form. It might not be as entertaining and good as other WW II/action movies, meant as entertainment, such as "Where Eagles Dare", "Kelly's Heroes" and "The Guns of Navarone" but it does have some great moments in it which still helps to make "The Eagle Has Landed" a bit of a must see for the fans of the genre.

The story is just great and its interesting to see a movie for once from the perspective of the German side. For once the Germans are not portrayed as ruthless villains but as soldiers with valor and courage instead. The movie is perhaps a bit moralistic in the first halve of the movie (basicly every German soldier shown in the movie openly hates Hitler and is against the deportation of Jews to the concentration camps. It feels too forced all) but nevertheless the perspective the movie is told from is great and works good for the movie. It's too bad that the movie is told needlessly slow at times, while it could had been a great fast paced action-movie.

The movie has a great cast but this is not really an actors movie, meaning that the movie wouldn't had been any better or worse with some other lesser known names in it. It was weird to hear Donald Sutherland talking in an Irish accent and Robert Duvall with a German one. Also Treat Williams in one of his first movie roles was horrible as the American soldier Capt. Clark. On the other hand, it was great to see Donald Pleasance as Heinrich Himmler. Other big names in this movie are Michael Caine, Anthony Quayle and Jean Marsh.

The action sequences are good and definitely the best part of the movie. The movie is somewhat entertaining to watch and it does have some well placed humor at times but its not quite enough to truly uplift this movie to a level of greatness.

This last movie from director John Sturges is a memorable but not perfect one.

7/10

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I almost gave up on this film after the first hour. It was just too slow for me and I was having difficulty picking up some of dialog with the foreign accents (no subtitles are offered on the DVD).

However, once the "invasion" started the film was very interesting. The only ridiculous part was the role played by Larry Hagman. Liberal Hollywood loves to portray every Southerner as a gung-ho, out-of-control military freak. If I was from the South, I would have been highly offended at this stereotype.

What's really different about this film is that it's a World War II story told from the German side where the Germans are pictured as humane people. You don't see that too much from English-speaking filmmakers.

Michael Caine is the most likable of these people, one of those given the assignment of kidnapping Winston Churchill (interesting premise, off the best- selling book by Jack Higgins). Donald Sutherland plays an Irishman recruited to help in the kidnapping and he's fun to watch.

This is really a man's movie, something like "The Guns Of Navarone," but they inserted Jenny Agutter in here to give the viewers a pretty face and some romance, even though it has absolutely no bearing on the story.

Robert Duvall, Jean Marsh, Treat Williams, Donald Pleasance and Anthony Quayle are some of the other "name" actors who contribute. All in all, a pretty good movie if you can get by that first hour!

Based on a best-selling tall story by Jack Higgins, and featuring an all-star cast that must've cost half the budget just to get to sign up for the project, The Eagle Has Landed is an enjoyable but slightly overlong wartime actioner.

German soldier Max Radl (Robert Duvall) comes up with an audacious plot to deliver a devastating blow to the Allied forces by kidnapping Winston Churchill from a Norfolk village. A team of deadly German spies, led by Kurt Steiner (Michael Caine), are smuggled into England to carry out this sinister scheme. Aided by an Irish mercenary (Donald Sutherland), the German forces rapidly and ruthlessly close in on their target. Only an inexperienced American garrison, posted in a quiet corner of Norfolk, can stand in the way of a devastating German victory.

The Eagle Has Landed is one of the few films where the all-star cast doesn't have a detrimental effect. In films like A Bridge Too Far and The Longest Day, the presence of so many stars actually results in a game of "star-spotting", and this diverts the audience's attention away from important plot developments. In The Eagle Has Landed, each actor brings depth and charisma to their strongly written roles (especially Sutherland as the devious Irish rogue, and Duvall as an eye-patch wearing Nazi). This film's faults lie elsewhere. The opening hour and a quarter goes on rather too much and ought to have been trimmed by at least fifteen minutes. Also, the plot rides its luck with increasingly less likely, less plausible developments (especially the unpersuasive "twist" ending). For these reasons, The Eagle Has Landed isn't quite the excellent film you might be hoping for. What it is, however, is an enjoyable, well-acted and very watchable slice of escapism.

This is an exceptional war movie about a supposed plot by the Nazis to kidnap Churchill. Michael Caine is a German officer who speaks perfect English and leads a team of paratroopers who are disguised as Poles. The cover story is that they are a Free Polish regiment on maneuvers in Britain. At the same time, IRA leader Donald Sutherland helps lay the groundwork for their arrival.

The story is very complex and the acting is first-rate. Provided you don't think too much, this is a highly entertaining film. Sure, the Nazis didn't attempt such a mission, but I enjoyed this alternative history movie.