Wild Geese II (1985)A group of mercenaries is hired to spring Rudolf Hess from Spandau Prison in Berlin. Director:Peter R. Hunt |
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Wild Geese II (1985)A group of mercenaries is hired to spring Rudolf Hess from Spandau Prison in Berlin. Director:Peter R. Hunt |
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Scott Glenn | ... |
John Haddad
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| Barbara Carrera | ... |
Kathy Lukas
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| Edward Fox | ... |
Alex Faulkner
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| Laurence Olivier | ... | ||
| Robert Webber | ... |
Robert McCann
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Robert Freitag | ... |
Stroebling
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Kenneth Haigh | ... |
Col. Reed-Henry
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Stratford Johns | ... |
Mustapha El Ali
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Derek Thompson | ... |
Hourigan
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Paul Antrim | ... |
Murphy
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| John Terry | ... |
Michael
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| Ingrid Pitt | ... |
Hooker
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| Patrick Stewart | ... |
Russian General
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Michael Harbour | ... |
KGB Man
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David Lumsden | ... |
Joseph
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A group of mercenaries is hired to spring Rudolf Hess from Spandau Prison in Berlin.
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.