Les oies sauvages II

Yes, Richard Burton died before filming this (he's only seen in the pre-title sequence that is footage from the first Wild Geese film---and really of no consequence to the sequel's story). Perhaps Burton saw the script for this mess and realized there was no reason to go on living. There is certainly no reason to go on watching this thing, that's for sure. It's all about some muddled kidnapping of Rudolf Hess from Spandau prison. Seems the British, the Germans, the Soviets and the scriptwriter all want to have a hand in either killing or keeping Hess alive. When we finally get a look at Hess, after 90+ minutes of tedious intrigue, it turns out that that the kidnappers have goofed and grabbed Sir Laurence Olivier instead---and not the good Olivier, but the decrepit 'Jazz Singer' version. Sir Larry, that sly ol' dog, thinks he can fool us with a Hess-like unibrow and that 'Marathon Man' German accent, but we're not buying it. The kidnappers aren't either and dump Sir Larry/Hess at the French Embassy in Berlin. The real Hess died in 1987 (hung himself in his cell, perhaps after viewing this film) and Olivier followed in 1989. Time passages.....

Oh, there is something of interest in this film, at least for fanciers of woodworking. That would be Scott Glenn's performance. There is a point in the film where he appears badly injured but I'm thinking it's a cover-up for an obvious case of attack by termites. At one risible point, the benumbed Glenn re-tells his sorrowful back-story of family slaughter to Carrera with the closing line: "Death ate its way into me." That's code for termites. Or perhaps Novocaine ate its way into him. Glenn had already tried out his zombie-style "acting" before in 'The Keep', but this is the topper: you'll be hard-pressed to find a more appallingly flat performance recorded on film. At least Edward Fox (doing his 'Day of The Jackal' thing) is lively. Otherwise you get Robert Webber literally phoning in his performance, all two minutes of it, and Patrick Stewart doing a small bit (complete with bad accent) as a Soviet military man, and Stratford Johns practically faxing Sydney Greenstreet from the dead as a chuckling, gargantuan wheeler-dealer. Paul Antrim gets the Sergeant Major Harry Andrews part, and Derek Thompson gets the nonsensical IRA soldier gig. For some reason Thompson's character, in his attempts to sneak away to report to his superiors, feels the need to keep spiking Fox's character with LSD. Guess the IRA frowns on complicated solutions... like using sleeping pills. And there's also the main caper requiring our heroes to impersonate British soldiers, but Glenn can't even manage the slightest accent. Somehow the real British soldiers guarding Hess, when confronted by the very out-of-place Glenn shouting at them with his harsh American accent, do his bidding without question. Well, at least there is a bright side: there hasn't been a Wild Geese III. Yet.

If you're expecting lots of action and gunplay, don't bother; you'll surely be disappointed. The movie focuses more on intrigue and endless spy games. The complicated story maintains interest throughout, but ultimately it's all for naught. Still, there is a sly performance by Edward Fox to be enjoyed (if you can stand his deliberately curious accent!) (**)

This is a highly underated film. For those of you who love Hard action films , this is perfect. Peter Hunt gives the procedings a no frills, lean and mean pace. He brilliantly captures the tough World the characters live in. I loved the first film, this isn't as good but is entertaining enough. It is very much like 'Who dares Wins' in its uncinical approach to fast and heavy violence. The characters are not nice people so there is little love loss between them. Scott Glenn plays the lead Emotionless and I believe this is done on purpose.

Not good, but not too bad. Takes a while to get going, but then the action is pretty good. Ending is a bit lame, and unnecessary. The movie could have been ended 10-15 minutes earlier.

Richard Burton was to star in this sequel to the original Wild Geese, but he died before shooting started. Edward Fox was rushed in as his younger brother with a script change. The film was dedicated to Burton.

Probably a much better film could have been dedicated to Burton, I think he would have liked some Shakespearean production dedicated to him. Not that the first Wild Geese would ever rank among the great films of all time, but it was nicely done story about the comradeship of the military fraternity.

These guys headed by Fox and Scott Glenn aren't mercenaries, they're heist guys. And it's a who they're trying to heist not a what. The last prisoner in Spandau where all the surviving Nazis were contained, those who weren't hanged.

Sir Laurence Olivier takes out his mitteleuropa Albert Basserman accent for the last time to play Rudolf Hess, former Deputy Fuehrer of the Third Reich who escaped the hangman at Nuremberg because of insanity and the fact he'd flown to the UK and was captured there. He sat out World War II in a British jail while the Holocaust was going on. Hard to prove complicity in it in that situation.

Hess was a symbol to neo-Nazis everywhere, a last living reminder of Hitler's Germany. But the man himself was essentially a nobody. What he did do was attach himself early on to Adolph Hitler, served time in jail to him. As a faithful scribe he took down Hitler's prose in what later became Mein Kampf.

When Hitler came to power, he gave Hess a nice high falutin' title of Deputy Fuehrer, a reward for services rendered. But Hess was never in the inner circle of things and gradually moved farther and farther out of Hitler's orbit as he consolidated power in Germany.

So in 1941 poor Hess cooked up this whacko scheme to fly to the United Kingdom on his own to try and negotiate a separate peace. Of course when it was realized that he spoke for no one, the British clapped him jail. It was a sad pathetic attention getting gesture by a very mediocre man, shoved aside by those in power.

The premise of this story is that Glenn and Fox are hired to spring Hess out of Spandau so he could tell what he knew about Hitler to the world. The plot gets needlessly complicated as the Russians, the Palestinians, and the IRA all get involved.

Knowing what we know about Hess the question to all this is why bother?

Even Laurence Olivier doing a part by rote is better than most players giving their all. The rest of the cast just goes through the motions as Olivier does.

Not a great tribute film for Richard Burton.