Movie reviews: The Eagle Has Landed
This movie documents a fictional plot by a group of German commandos to kidnap Winston Churchill. Michael Caine stars as the man chosen to lead the squad, Donald Sutherland is the team's Irish liaison, and Robert Duvall is the colonel in charge of masterminding the whole operation. The movie also stars Donald Pleasance as Heinrich Himmler, Jenny Agutter as the woman that Sutherland's falls in love with, Larry Hagman as a glory hound of an American colonel. Doctor Who fans might also recognize Jean Marsh as a woman collaborating with the Germans.
This was a pretty interesting war movie. For the most part the Germans weren't the stereotypical movie villains that you usually get in these sort of movies. They are depicted as being quite chivalrous and try to keep away from civilian casualties. Near the start of the movie, Michael Caine's character even gets in trouble with his superiors for saving an innocent Jewish woman from German soldiers. The exception was Donald Pleasance as Himmler. He was hissably evil, as you would expect a real Nazi to be.
The German accents were more or less successful throughout. Well, those actors that had a noticeable German accent. I couldn't really tell if Michael Caine bothered with the accent or not. I did find Donald Sutherland's Irish accent to be quite comical in places. I half expected him to go for the trite 'top o' the mornin' to ye' sort of stuff.
A pretty decent war movie in my opinion, and I didn't even fall asleep while watching it! I'll give it three pointy hats out of five.
Next time: Superman/Batman- Apocalypse
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