Barnes & Noble

This wonderfully cast and delightfully offbeat caper film blends comedy, pathos, high adventure, and thrills into a package that will delight most unsuspecting viewers. Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris, Stewart Granger, and Hardy Kruger star in this tale of aging mercenaries on a mission, adapted by Reginald Rose from Daniel Carney’s story and directed with a sure hand by British journeyman Andrew V. McLaglen. The tale follows a predictable course but contains just enough surprises and changes of tone to keep viewers interested. The titular characters parachute into the African jungle to find a recently deposed ruler and reinstate him on behalf of British business interests. It’s interesting to see Roger Moore -- at that time, the screen’s reigning James Bond -- plying his trade outside of that series; when he takes out Mafia thugs in London (an operation that has nothing to do with the principal story line), you’ll swear he’s still acting for Her Majesty’s Secret Service. However, you would never hear 007 swearing up a storm the way these old salts do, and a Bond movie would never feature the kind of drawn-out and bloody action sequences found here. But that's what you want from rousing entertainment like this. They weren't the Tame Geese, after all. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

The plot of this of this adaptation of the Daniel Carney's novel, sprinkled throughout a series of extended Sam Peckinpah-inspired action sequences, deals with a collection of mercenary toughguys -- Colonel Allen Faulkner (Richard Burton), Lieutenant Shawn Fynn (Roger Moore), Rafer Janders (Richard Harris), Pieter Coetzee (Hardy Kruger) -- who are hired to parachute into the African bush country and abscond with deposed African president Julius Limbani (Winston Ntshona) and reinstall him as a reigning monarch of an African country, to satisfy British mercantile interests. The action sequences were successful enough to spawn a sequel -- appropriately titled Wild Geese II. Paul Brenner

Product Details

• UPC: 844628010160
• Source: TANGO ENTERTAINMENT
• Region Code: 1
• Time: 2:10:00
• Sales Rank: 3,130

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