The Wild Geese

The Wild Geese follows a band of veteran mercenaries recruited in London by Sir Edward Matherson, a wealthy British industrialist acting for a multinational company. He wants them to enter a central African country and free Julius Limbani, an imprisoned political leader whose health is failing and whose execution is expected, so that he can take power in place of the dictator Ndofa. Colonel Allen Faulkner, an ageing soldier of fortune, takes charge of the operation and brings in old friends such as Captain Rafer Janders and Lieutenant Shawn Fynn, then assembles and trains around fifty men for the mission.

Reginald Rose wrote the screenplay, and Andrew V. McLaglen directed. The film is the twelfth of the sixteen features he directed in chronological order, coming after Mitchell and before Breakthrough. Richard Burton plays Faulkner, with Richard Harris as Janders, Roger Moore as Fynn, Hardy Krüger as Lieutenant Pieter Coetze, Stewart Granger as Matherson and John Kani as Sergeant Jesse Blake. It is a British and Swiss production made for about ten million dollars.

The rescue itself succeeds, but Matherson reaches an arrangement with Ndofa that leaves the mercenaries stranded. They must fight their own way out against far larger forces and settle accounts with the man who hired them. On IMDb the film holds a rating of 6.8 from roughly sixteen thousand votes, and on TMDB it also stands at 6.8, from around three hundred votes, indicating a modest but steady reputation.