Wild Geese II (1985) Reviews

• This is a good film.

  usobands2002-01-17

  I saw this film just once in the mid eighties immediately after it's release. For anyone mildly interested in the historical events of the 'cold war' era, it is an excellent example(without giving away any of the plot) of how the East and West used Hess as a pawn. Olivier as always, does a truly remarkable job portraying the latter day Hess. I could not imagine any other actor being able to portray him so convincingly, and with the usual attention Olivier paid to his visual appearance, he gives a first class performance which has remained in my memory some 17 years on. It left such a good impression on me that I have spent the last 15 years scanning the TV film pages for it - to no avail. Scott Glenn too returns a creditable performance, and Edward Fox steps into the shoes of Richard Burton quite seamlessly. Good story line for anyone with even a scant knowledge of modern history, and well directed. This film has never seemed to make it to the TV screens and I cannot understand why. Nor have I seen a video available in the UK. It is an excellent film, but probably not of much interest to the younger viewer who has no interest in the era and the history

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• Not Bad...

  goldfinger2a-22003-04-01

  I have just seen this film, and l thought it was quite good, not up to the original but the story line was good, the acting was good, in fact it was a good film with a fantastic idea. Olivier and Fox add to the cast with Olivier doing his best to convey a hard part... I have read in books that this film was a "bomb" and a lot of folk don`t like it, but why has every film got to have a message, why can't people just see a film for what is should be a bit of fun, l give this film 8/10

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• Thrilling story about some mercenaries hired to break out Rudolph Hess from Spandau Prison

  ma-cortes2009-12-06

  This inferior sequel deals about a new group of the much-wanted mercenaries (Scott Glenn, Edward Fox, John Terry among others) assigned by a rich television network (Robert Webber, Barbara Carrera) to free famous arch-Nazi war criminal Rudolph Hess. The film is packed with noisy action, thrills, suspense, tension and lots of violence . It contains uncomfortable mix of flaws and gaps with little believable situations and is badly developed. The picture is middling directed by Peter Hunt who made one of the best Bond films : ¨On her majestic's secret service ¨, furthermore ,¨Death hunt¨ and ¨Shout the devil¨. The movie is dedicated to Richard Burton , he played the original film (along with Roger Moore, Hardy Kruger,Richad Harris, Stewart Granger), that was better than you would expect. Adding more details about those described on the movie regarding Rudolph Hess - very well played by Laurence Olivier- and his Spandau prison, the events were the following : Hess was privately distressed by the war with Great Britain, because he, like almost other Nazis , hoped that would accept Germany as an ally . He thought to score a diplomatic victory by sealing a peace and attempted to contact the Duke of Hamilton in Scotland. On 10 May 1941 , Hess took off in a Messerschmitt. Hess parachuted over Renfrewshire , Scotland, there a farmer named David McLain declared to have arrested Hess with his pitchfork. Hess then became a defendant at the Nuremberg trial of the International Military Tribunal where in 1946 was found guilty on two counts and he was given a life sentence. On 1987 , Hess died while under four power imprisonment at Spandau prison in west Berlin , at the age 93. He was found with an electric cord wrapped around his neck. Spandau prison was subsequently demolished to prevent it from becoming a shrine

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• Plain and simply lousy

  p-jonsson2013-04-20

  When I bought the original The Wild Geese (mostly for nostalgic reasons) on Blu-ray I got The Wild Geese II on DVD included. I would probably not have bought it otherwise. This movie is typical example of the "follow ups" that where done in the 80's. Base it loosely on the title of the original, none of the original actors are present, give it zero budget. In short this movie is lousy. Why it was made, apart from being a cheap attempt to squeeze some more money from the success of the original, is beyond me. It is claimed that Richard Burton was going to reprise his role in this one but that he died before he could do it. I would be surprised if Richard Burton would have accepted to play in this movie. At least not without some major rewrites. The story is dubious to say the least. Sure the story in the original was not very ground breaking either but in the original The Wild Geese the actors had charisma. Richard Burton was the infallible (almost) though guy that knew what he was doing. In this one Scott Glenn runs around looking like a wimp and generally do not really seem to know what he is doing. He gets captured by the oldest of tricks. He is too stupid to realize the most obvious of things, like that the girl might need protection. There is little of the actual mercenary action that was present in the original one. The good guys mostly walk around scouting, planning or screwing up. The little enjoyment that can be found is in the performance of Edward Fox who is also the only guy who remotely seems to know what he is doing. The end is just silly. All that effort, not the least by the viewer having watched this crap to the end, is simply wasted.

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• Mission: Impossible British style

  glynnewiley2001-06-16

  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.

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