The Wild Geese

A great cast was assembled here for this film: Richard Burton, Roger Moore, and Richard Harris certainly have all done better movies in their day, but it was their skills which made The Wild Geese enjoyable. Of the three, I think Harris comes off as the most sympathetic character; as his role is certainly the most fleshed out, his scenes with his young son are very poignant; and his talk with Faulkner (Burton) expressing his concerns the night before the mission show his fears and worries as not only a person, but as a father.Richard Burton's Falkner is a mercenary who is being offered a contract by millionaire industrialist Stewart Granger. He must assemble, train and equip a group of mercenaries to rescue Julius Limbani (Winston Ntshona), a peaceful, well-loved African leader who has been deposed in a military coup. Burton does the job, but when the job is finished he and his mercenaries find getting out of Africa a whole lot more than they bargained for.Roger Moore's Sean Finn is an enjoyable rogue, and adds a touch of humour to offset Burton's tough-guy leader role and Harris' over-thinking planner with a fondness for the 'underdog'.Of course action adventure is old hat for Roger Moore. He was in his prime as James Bond when The Wild Geese was done. But Moore shows he can be quite serious here. None of the tongue in cheek deadpan that characterizes a Bond film.The scenes dealing with the recruiting and training of the mercenaries come straight out of John Ford. So are the various types among the soldiers. Even the ones with the smallest of speaking parts are done so well, you can almost imagine their history with the unit as well as what they are like as men, as soldiers, as comrades.I really enjoyed Kenneth Griffith's portrayal of the openly gay Medical Orderly Arthur Witty. Yes he's certainly stereotypical, but the point is he's accepted by the men who really don't care about his sexual orientation when in a fight and the going gets rough. Additionally, he turns out to be quite the John Wayne - badd-ass type hero in the end when confronted by the Zimbas and is alone covering his comrades escape.The Wild Geese turned out to be very popular in its day, and Burton was going to do a sequel: Wild Geese II when he died in 1983. It might have been an interesting film had he done it since it would have paired him with Sir Laurence Olivier in that one.In the end The Wild Geese is a great action/adventure film to be certain, but it's also about something much more - its about loyalty, tradition, and camaraderie. These men may fight for money, but they are fanatically loyal to the unit created and to each other.As a final note worth mentioning, Joan Armatrading's title song: The Flight of the Wild Geese, is a great piece of work. Her lyrics are poignant, and the music is moving. When paired visually with the opening credits, it creates quite a stir of emotions, and the soundtrack to this movie is well worth the cost if you can find it.

When this movie was released in 1978, I thought it was one of the best that I had seen. Even by current 2002 standards I still rate it very high. The special effects, action and overall look and feel of the combat scenes is very realistic. This is true even in the wake of newer films such as "Saving Private Ryan" and "Blackhawk Down". The subject matter was interesting too. The movie was made during a period when wars were being fought all over Africa in such places as Angola, Chad, Rhodesia, Mozambique, Uganda and South Africa. The Soviet Union and its lackeys were still a menace to the free world. Hence the presence of Cuban and East German advisors among the dreaded "Simba" (Lion) Battalion in the movie. This was the case in real life in Angola after 1976 when the communist forces gained the upper hand. Further east in Uganda, African dictator Idi Amin gained notoriety after the famous rescue of Israeli and French hostages at Entebbe Airport by Israeli Commandos. Amin was infamous for the brutality of his rule. His best unit was coincidently called the Simba Battalion. The Wild Geese is set in a fictional African nation that was a composite of several that existed at that time. Fifty British and South African mercenaries led by Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Roger Moore are hired to rescue Julius Limbani (the rightful leader of this African country) from imprisonment by an African dictator. The mercenaries end up being double crossed by their employer and must fight their way to freedom dragging Limbani along the way. Most, including Harris, are killed before escaping. Burton, Moore and a handful of men barely manage to fly out in an old DC-3 Dakota transport plane while hundreds of Simbas overrun the airstrip. Limbani dies on the plane before reaching the safety of Rhodesia. Burton and Moore slip back to England and take revenge on their former employer after getting most of the money owed to them and their men. Please release "The Wild Geese" on DVD.It appears that a new movie - "Tears of the Sun", set to be in theaters..., follows a similar plot. Bruce Willis leads a U.S. Navy SEAL team to rescue an American missionary in Nigeria. The original plan to extract them by helicopter is aborted, after which the SEALS escort the missionary and refugees toward the border through jungle covered hills teeming with 5,000 rebel troops pursuing a political figure who happens to be one of the refugees in their group. ..

Great movie, haven't seen it for a while so glad I bought it. One of my favorite mercenary movies and his a great cast. Roughly modeled after a real mercenary group Five Commando in Africa.

This is a great movie, a realistic portrayal of mercenary politics in late-70s to mid-80s southern Africa, and a generally fun male-oriented action film with enough real character development and poignancy to cause my fiancee to enjoy it and even burst into tears at the end. I have only one question: what happened to the nighttime scenes? Now I know how they do these things. Its filmed in daylight and then made to look like night using a dark filter. ANd that is precisely how it looked in the original film for the airdrop and the assault on the garrison prison compound. Unfortunately, in the process of remastering the film for this 30th anniversary edition, which is very thoughtfully put together, somebody forgot to re-apply the nighttime filter to the appropriate scenes and the effect is to totally spoil some of the best moments of the film. It looks absurd for this group of men to be moving in on a facility in broad daylight. Can someone please do something about this?

I have never seen this one but read a lot about it ... terrific cast with matching acting. It did not disappoint!