THE EAGLE HAS LANDED

This film about a German plot to kidnap Churchill bears some resemblance to an earlier and superior wartime film 'Went The Day Well' in that in both films German soldiers take over a stereotypical English village.

This film however suffers from two fundamental problems.

The first is that (spoiler alert) we know the plot is not going to succeed.  This problem is further compounded by the fact that the German mission starts to unravel surprisingly early in proceedings.

The second problem is that we see things from the point of view of the Germans, and are therefore meant to sympathise with them. To get around this the film does everything possible to stress that these Germans are ‘good Nazis’.  They behave very politely to the villagers, and the only people they kill are US soldiers rather than British, and then only in self-defence.

Because the Germans are so nice, and are doomed to fail, there is very little tension.  The action sequences therefore don't carry much weight.

That the film is as enjoyable as it is is down to the three leading performances, by Michael Caine as the leader of the German commandos, Robert Duvall as the unlucky person to be tasked with turning Hitler's crazy idea into a workable plan, and Donald Sutherland as an idiosyncratic IRA sympathiser who is used as an undercover agent for the Germans.

The film also benefits from sharp dialogue.  I particularly enjoyed the moment when Caine corrects the local vicar and points out that the mission failed because one of his soldiers died saving a village girl from drowning, revealing himself to be a German in the process. 

That sequence is the most memorable in the film although I couldn't help thinking that a lethal water wheel in the middle of the village should really have had a fence around it.

Although Jenny Agutter’s presence in any film is welcome, the subplot involving her romance with Donald Sutherland is ludicrous and does the film no favours.

The same might also be said of the finale when Caine, now on his own, persists in the mission.

So this film is a well-made and entertaining piece of tosh but quite why it is held in such high regard is something of a mystery to me.

RATING: ✓ If You've Nothing Better To Do