The Commander (1988)

British action star Lewis Collins stars in this action/adventure film about another group of mercenaries sent in to eliminate a drug lord in Southeast Asia. The problem is that they are working for a rival just as they were in Code Name: Wild Geese which starred Collins and Lee Van Cleef.Van Cleef is at his sardonic best in this film as the one who puts together the mercenary team. There's also a CIA involvement in this. Spymaster Donald Pleasence puts a ringer into Collins's mercenaries with instructions to get a floppy disc to him or destroy it. It contains the names of all kinds big players in the international drug trade.Nothing special here, fans of Van Cleef and Pleasence get to see both of them ham it up a bit. And if you saw Code Name: Wild Geese or the orginal Wild Geese the same general plot outline is followed.

This is the third entry in a loose trilogy of Euro action movies directed by Antonio Margheriti and starring Lewis Collins. I have yet to see the first instalment but have seen the second, Commando Leopard (1985), which I thought was quite good. This final entry, however, I didn't think so much of. The plot involved a group or mercenaries, lots of gun shooting, explosions and a top secret floppy disc. It was an entirely tiresome story-line quite honestly and a film in which you have to have a considerable interest in exploding helicopters and gun battles if you are going to get much out of it. I am somewhat ambivalent about action movies myself but I do enjoy some, such as the previous instalment in this series. But this one I essentially found to be a tedious series of action and dialogue scenes. Basically I have found that all films that focus on top secret floppy discs are awful.The cast is actually not bad though. We have b-movie legends such as Lee Van Cleef and Donald Pleasence and cult favourites such as Bobby Rhodes (the best cinematic pimp of all time from Demons (1985) and Demons 2 (1986)) and John Steiner (from Dario Argento's seminal giallo Tenebrae (1982). But the impressive cast can't save this one. It was also decidedly overlong for what it was and by the end I was just glad it was over.

"Der Commander" or "The Commander" is a West German / Italian co-production from 1988 (almost 30 years old) and this one runs for 105 minutes. According to IMDb, it is a German-language film in the original, but I am not too sure about this. Yes the title is German, but the actors who play the main characters are not, so they have been dubbed for sure. Also it is part of as trilogy and the previous film (despite having German titles) are no German-language films either according to IMDb. Anyway, the cast is pretty good here. The title character is played by Lewis Collins and I cannot say I know who that is, but other than him Donald Pleasence from James Bond and Lee Van Cleef (star of epic western films) have lots of screen time too. For the latter, it was one of the final performances of his life and career and he has aged considerably compared to other films you may have seen him in. The director is Antonio Margheriti and the trio who wrote this are also 2 Italians and one German. The latter is Arne Elsholtz, who died recently, and looking at other films from him, this was certainly a very different genre compared to what he usually did. It is a military film that takes place in Asia, so you basically know what to expect. For male audiences, they included one hot female solider, an Asian actually. The story is pretty generic for a military film and sadly, I was not really impressed by the acting or the plot here. Then again, I may be a bit biased as military films are rarely my preferred choice. That's why I give this one a thumbs down. Only worth checking out for the biggest fans of the genre.

This film follows CODENAME WILDGEESE and COMMANDO LEOPARD. It is not as good as either of those films, due mainly to the fact that the action sequences lack the tight editing and loud sound effects of the two earlier films. The acting is good, and far better than your average B movie. Fans of these European films will get a kick out of the cast of B movie favourites Collins, Van Cleef, Pleasence, Halsey, Lehmann, Puppo, Monty and others. May director Margheriti continue to work, I for one will still watch his films.