Review – The Eagle Has Landed

This World War Two drama fits quite well with the mid-70s environment that spawned it. The Germans are the heroes, or anti-heroes if you prefer. A team of German paratroopers has been sent to Britain to kidnap Churchill. They’re being aided by an IRA insider (Donald Sutherland, with an Irish accent so bad it’s almost a shame he even bothered to try) and a woman whose family was killed by the English during the Boer war, two folks who seem to have a legitimate reason to want the Prime Minister dead. The plot gets blown when one of the troopers dies trying to rescue a child. In other words, this level of moral ambiguity is a far cry from the days of John Wayne and Audie Murphy. The first time I saw this was when it first came out, and the venue was one of the converted hallways upstairs at the Empire theater. It was hot and stuffy, and it was hard to pay attention to the picture. So it was nice to at least be able to watch it this time through. Mildly amusing