The Commander

1988
4.8| 1h45m| en
Details

Lewis Collins is back to leading mercenaries on the move in Southeast Asia. This time the cast is unusually good including Lee Van Cleef, Brett Halsey (Cop Game), Romano Puppo (Robowar), Mike Monty (Raiders of Atlantis), Bobby Rhodes (The Great Alligator), etc. Anyway, Van Cleef has Collins go on some random mission to locate a disc with all sorts of valuable crazy intelligence data on it. It just happens that Donald Pleasence, a random government official, hires another mercenary-for-hire Manfred Lehman to tag along and make sure the data ends up in the right hands. Van Cleef isn't taking any chances, and since he is crooked and murders Collins's other bosses quickly, he places Romano Puppo in the group as well to make sure the operation runs smoothly. Collins may not be too expressive but at least he seems to figure out quickly who's out to get him, so the mission continues with lots of double-crosses, twists and turns, and of course lots of explosions!

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Reviews

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews
Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.
Red-Barracuda 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.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "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.
ma-cortes This action-packed film deals about some stalwart mercenaries . A team formed by a misfit troop of commando-for hire are contracted (by Lee Van Cleef, Paul Muller) to attack a lord-ringer's stronghold and retrive a floppy disk. They're commanded by a tough and two-fisted Major (Lewis Collins) helped by a war veteran (Manfred Lhemann). The band of mercenaries (Romano Puppo, Mike Monty, Bobby Rhodes : customaries in Italian B series) land deep into jungle to obliterate some drug-lords in Asia's infamous Golden triangle and much movement and danger ensues. The bunch includes a Thai native girl who falls in love with the veteran war.This fast-paced movie contains adventures, thrills, mindless agitation and lots of noisy action for the most part. Big name cast by known actors as Lee Van Cleef and Donald Pleasance in a histrionic and sympathetic role. Screenplay by usual Tito Carpi but some spectacular action scenes cannot a silly script save. Stirring final full of explosions, shootouts and burning installations ; furthermore some plot twists. Cinematography is quite well, capturing the atmosphere of everywhere, in addition some moving images shot with camera above the shoulder. Embarrassment musical score composed by synthesizer isn't composed by Ennio Morricone. The picture is produced in average budget by Erwin C. Dietrich, ordinary producer and director of soft-core genre and Jess Frank's habitual financier. The motion picture is regularly directed by Antonio Margheriti. The film was realized in the wake of ¨Wild Geese¨ (Andrew V McLagen) and ¨Wild Geese II¨(Peter Hunt). And belong a trilogy constituted by ¨Codename : ¨Wild geese (1984)¨ and ¨Command leopard(1985)¨ starred by similar actors and same technical equipment and director. This jungle-setting exploitation movie will appeal to Eurotrash buffs.
Mazzarini 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.