Panther Squad

Embarrassingly bad, grade-Z "action" film, but the spectacle of a leather-clad Sybil Danning is worthy of a single star. If you're looking for a serious actioner with girls kicking a**, don't bother; obviously the people involved in making this don't have a clue. The man who plays the only male agent gives the only convincing performance; he looks utterly stupefied.

I pity the video rental store customers who, looking for something fun to watch on a slow night in the mid 80s, saw this sexy box cover with Sybil Danning holding a machine gun, got excited, read on the back that "the Panther Squad gives you non-stop action", and believed it.

Even connoisseurs of trash are likely to feel let down by this one. After a promising opening credits target practice montage set to a fun rock song called "Tough and Tender", Panther Squad goes limp and lazily smirks its way through a series of lame gags, sub-Dolemite fight choreography, and lifeless acting to a mildly amusing end sequence involving an easily whipped world takeover attempt and a cheesy laser that makes a Jeep disappear. A chintzy flick like this one really needs to slather on the exploitative elements in order to hold a viewer's interest, but Panther Squad is sadly and uninterestingly barren of any gore or nudity.

Danning lacks the charisma to carry such lackluster material, and Jack Taylor, a familiar face from European horror films like The Vampires Night Orgy and Pieces, looks bored throughout - though this is apparently intentional and supposed to be humorous - and his absentminded spy character effectively sums up the film's merits when he observes, "Things move pretty slowly around here." Panther Squad is clearly intended as camp, but at times one wonders where the winking, unfunny play ineptitude ends and the real lack of behind-the-camera talent takes over. Case in point: the villains are supposed to be wacko anti-pollution terrorists, but in one scene we see a group of them riding in a car that's putting out blasts of thick, black smoke. Is this a joke, or was the production just that cheap and shoddy? I'm still not sure.

Fans of filmmaking on the Mikels or Sloane level might be able to tolerate this, but all others are advised to avoid. As of writing, unloved VHS copies of Panther Squad are cheaply available.

This movies is properbly the best from Sybil Danning. A team of sexy commandos go to rescue the world from an terrorist orginisation. This theme is nothing special but the talent of sybil's group make this one very impressive. They do run, fight a lot and beat up the bad guys. However, this is a low budget film that unable to make a convincing sences at the end of the story. Indeed, such kind of girl-n-gun genre would never be convincing enough. Who care. I should say this is very good one you can find among the euro spy action and Miss danning is impressive. Definitely, it delivers the elements that charlie' angels does.

My review was written in July 1986 after watching the movie on Lightning video cassette.

"Panther Squad" is bound to be a disappointment for Sybil Danning fans as, in stepping into a co-produce role in addition to starring, the statuesque actress has deleted the sexy elements of her earlier work. Feature, filmed last year in Spain and Belgium, is a direct-to-videocassette release.

A dumb sci-fi storyline has an anti-pollution group called Clean Space terrorizing the space program of New Organization of Nations (a followup to the UN). Clean space sabotages a launch of NOON's futuristic Space Jeep and kidnaps the female backup astronaut in order to prevent a second mission.

NOON calls in female commando Ilona (Sybil Dannig) who brings in her six femme assistants to free the astronaut and put Clean Space out of business.

Not only is there no nudity and no sex in the picture, the action scenes are poorly photographed and edited. Sight of Danning and her minions in campy, bare-midriff leather outfits easily disposing of male cast members is silly wish fulfillment executed on a G-rated level. Sci-fi content is limited to Danning using a disintegrator gun in the final reel.

Actors speak English slowly and clearly, allowing for acceptable post-synched dialog, but the lines are stupid, such as Danning confronting a megalomaniac general's soldiers, yelling: "Surrender or I'll blow your Nikes off!". It's sobering to find out that the environmentalists are portrayed as the bad guys.

The other user reviews are pretty accurate.

It's like if Andy Sidaris was 14 and got a budget to make a film. Just like Hallmark Xmas movies, this one could easily be re-worked and improved to make a modern Sidaris flick, it has many, if not all of the same 80s elements.

From start to finish, this is terribly written/acted and awfully staged. There are so many continuity mistakes it was hard to keep up with them, the key ones being the girl-count from scene-to-scene. Maybe one or two of them took a food or bathroom break, but they had to keep on filming, who knows?

All of the women on Sybil's "squad" apparently can kick any well-armed and trained terrorists butt, and still look like they just came out of a salon, and their outfits, what little fabric there was to them, remained intact an unblemished despite multiple high-action conflicts in various nature settings. Don't look for any nip-slips, or cheeks, they're not here, the costumes keep body-parts well constrained. And on that topic, I think this is the only Sybil Danning flick without ANY nudity at all.(Her in a leather halter top is as risqué as it gets) this was on Tubi, so I am fairly certain it wasn't censored, but there's no bad language, the violence is subdued, so I'm curious as to the R-Rating. Toss in some early 80's B-band demo tracks, and your trip to the pre-Sidaris side is complete. Seriously, don't waste your time with this one.