User Reviews

A cruel tyrant named Homoza( Somoza ?) imposes his rules and tyranny in a South American country.The corruption, brutality and exploitation are usual practice but some people begin organize the resistance. A little group of guerrilla fight against the government. As a commando led by Carrasco (Lewis Collins), a tough, two-fisted rebel helped by a foreigner mercenary (John Steiner) and a veteran rebellious (Alan Collins or Luciano Pigozzi , the Italian Peter Lorre, customary in B series), among others . The adventure starts when the veteran band of mercenaries land deep inside the jungle to destroy a giant dam. Later on, they help out the jungle's inhabitants against the nasty Silveira(Klaus Kinski). Meanwhile they find a Catholic priest(Manfred Lhemamn) ruling a mission in middle of jungle and another (Mike Monty) as back-up.

This exciting film packs large-scale blow-up, routine plot, and lots of noisy action for the most part. Some cheesy scenes but contains a better scenario on the bridge blowing up , the burning installations and a spectacular Boeing plane explosion . This fast-paced movie blends adventures, thrills, and mindless agitation . Screenplay by usual Tito Carpi but some moving action scenes cannot a silly script save. Stirring final full of explosions, shootouts and including helicopters with fire-thrower ; furthermore some plot twists and turns. 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 or Anthony M. Dawson.These jungle-setting exploitation films from the 80s will like to action lovers and euro-trash enthusiasts.

The film belongs a trilogy directed by Anthony M Dawson(Margheriti) formed by ¨Wild Geese¨(1984)¨, ¨Commando Leopard(1985)¨ and ¨Der Commander(1988)¨ repeating similar actors, as Collins, Kinski,Manfred Lehmann , technicians and screenwriter, Tito Carpi.

If you're looking for an movie that guarantees non-stop action, violence and cheesy special effects, than you can't go wrong with something - anything - that Antonio Margheriti directed during the period 1975 – 1985. This man was the most underrated director of the Italian horror/cult industry and I haven't yet seen a single film of his that I didn't enjoy. Margheriti was an extremely talented and visionary filmmaker, but during the aforementioned period he simply answered to the audiences' demands and made numerous of straightforward and adrenalin-rushing exploitation movies for the American pulp video market. Some of them were imitations of popular American box-office hits and others were merely just cheap excuses to show a whole lot of explosions, shootouts and car chases. "Commando Leopard", along with its predecessor "Code Name: Wild Geese", definitely belongs in the in the second category: the plot line is very thin and the whole background to the Guerilla warfare remains rather vague, but there is miniature set blasting and collateral damage aplenty! In a not specifically mentioned Latin American (of course) country, the rebellious guerrilla leader Carrasco, along with friends and a couple of hired mercenaries, are courageously battling against the corrupt dictator Homoza. Their sabotage operations cause a lot of death and destruction amongst the innocent populace, much against the conviction of the noble Father Julio who helps hiding Carrasco's troops, but the resistance is devoted to continue their battle. The rebels come to discover, however, that the problem isn't so much President Homoza, but his cruel and sadistic military adviser; Colonel Silveira. As stated above, "Commando Leopard" is primarily a showcasing parade of nifty and well-crafter miniature set explosions. Margheriti consecutively blows up a dam, a convoy bridge, an airplane, a freight train and an entire oil refinery. All these action naturally cause a lot of damage and casualties. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but don't guerrilla rebels usually battle for the lives and prosperity of the people? Here, the resistance kills them and bring the nation in an even weaker economic position. The dictatorship of President Homoza isn't even properly enlightened or illustrated, but we're ought to assume that Carrasco is a genuine Ché Guevara. Script logic and depth aren't the film's biggest trumps, obviously, but this is all about spectacle and thrills! And acting performances, too. The legendary Klaus Kinski is once again tremendous as the cruel, sadist and downright evil Colonel Silveira. He's the type of guy who blows up an aircraft with 180 children on board just to make a statement!

Antonio Margheriti was a director who knocked out many films from different genres depending what was popular at the time in the Italian B-movie industry. He made films in various sub-categories - science fiction, Gothic horror, peplums, spaghetti westerns, gialli, pollsters, a creature feature, a cannibal movie, various action flicks – you name it! Commando Leopard is one of the latter, an 80's action-fest set in Latin America about an evil dictator and his sadistic adviser in their war against heroic resistance fighters.

Its story is very routine stuff really, that only serves as a platform for much explosions and shooting. But I would have to say that this is an above average example of this kind of thing. It has a decent enough cast, with Lewis Collins and John Steiner doing well enough as the chief resistance fighters and, better still, Klaus Kinski on hand for yet another turn as a bad tattie; in this case the psychotic military adviser who blows up a plane of children as part of his day job! What really elevates this one though are some very well crafted destruction scenes where we have a dam, a bridge and a train blown up in impressive ways but best of all is the aforementioned destruction of a passenger aircraft just before landing. This sequence really is very well executed indeed and illustrates that this is an 80's action film which has been made with a bit of effort.

Commando Leopard is cheesy but enthusiastic action trash for the most part. It's not extremely different from any other jungle-set, exploitation war movie from the 1980's. However, it does have 3 notable elements: First, the photography shows occasional flourishes of style that you wouldn't expect in a cheap 80s action b-movie. It's shot in 2.35:1 widescreen and every so often you get an artfully composed shot, a low angle "hero pose" image (which are far more common to big budget post-1990 action movies!), or a visceral over-the-shoulder camera angle on the gun play. The photography is nothing spectacular as a whole, but it does give the film an intermittent visual slickness that sets it apart from the bland coverage common to 1980's B-movie cinematography. Second, legendary actor Klaus Kinski is in the movie. Third, Commando Leopard is quite ambitious with at least 3 large-scale destruction/explosion scenes. There's a sense of enthusiasm to the affair that makes it easy to watch. Overall, it's one of the better examples of low-budget, exploitation film-making in the genre and era.

This is the second part of a war actioner trilogy which seems to enjoy some kind of cult status – the others being CODENAME: WILD GEESE (1984) and THE COMMANDER (1988) – and featuring the same star (Lewis Collins), producer (Jess Franco regular Erwin C. Dietrich) and director (Margheriti, who dabbled in every "Euro-Cult" subgenre there is, though he was at his best perhaps handling atmospheric Gothic chillers). Actually, it provides little more than standard heroics – albeit done on a fairly elaborate scale, with a couple of notably spectacular action sequences (including the blowing up of a dam, a stationary airplane and a moving train); allegedly, it was the most expensive Swiss-budgeted production up to that time.

Collins plays Carasco, a quasi-mythical leader of a band of revolutionary mercenaries – which include feisty Cristina Donadio, cynical John Steiner and world-weary Luciano Pigozzi (who is curiously uncredited) – up against the dictatorial regime of an unidentified Latin American state and, more specifically, Klaus Kinski's bloodthirsty militia. Another major character is that of the heroic priest (Manfred Lehmann) of a war-torn village who stands up to Kinski and, consequently, earns the respect and help of the mercenaries; the religious/political elements of the plot may be intended to give the whole a more serious tone than the typically mindless Euro-Cult fare – but we've still seen this "saintly martyr vs, cruel oppressors" scenario countless times in earlier and better Hollywood movies, so that this segment is actually more predictable than anything else.

The German 2-Disc set of the film which I happened upon at a local DVD rental outlet also contains a 50-minute "Making Of" Documentary but, unfortunately, I didn't have time to watch more than a few samples from it...

Kommando Leopard is chapter 2 in the Dawson-Collins jungle war trilogy, and whilst baring no real relation to the others, is essentially the same film with a few plot variations. This instalment finds the intrepid mercenaries being pursued by contract killer Klaus Kinski whilst holed up in a Church hospital run by mysterious priest Manfred Lehmann.

Quality scale miniature sets are used in abundance but generally to good effect, whilst the personnel is also much the same as the predecessor with Lehmann, Kinski and Collins re- joining Thomas Danneberg and veteran Alan Collins (aka Luciano Pigozzi) whilst American ex-pat Mike Monty and British ex-pat John Steiner join the franchise for their first appearances. Kinski does arrogant bad-ar$e better than anyone and this is a masterclass of his less-is-more approach though it's debatable whether his bored exterior is acting or genuine contempt.

As with the others there's a fair amount of pathos on display, mourning those lost and lamenting the sacrifices and collateral damage made in the name of cheque-book war - all of which is unnecessary and pure guff. But if you like it when stuff explodes, catches fire or just enjoy massive machine gun recoil and spent cartridges flying in all directions whilst the hero nonchalantly mows down his incompetent opponents, then Kommando Leopard will be very adequate - though brainless- escapism.

Commando Leopard looks outdated for today's eyes but in the case that you still like to watch such action classics like The Wild Geese, you can add this one to your watch list. Recommended, if you like 80s war action like The Wild Geese, Missing in Action, The Last Hunter and so on.

Judging by the overall look of this, it would appear that Antonio Margheriti was given a bigger than usual budget to play with for this follow up to his earlier Codename: Wildgeese.

Although not a direct sequel, the two films share many of the same cast members from the earlier picture including Lewis Collins, Klaus Kinski and Luciano Pigozzi (in different roles)

Well, I've got to say straight away that the ostensible extra budget really shows in the special effects department in this with some absolutely superb explosive sequences involving Margheriti's trademark miniature work, most notably during the opening sequence wherein a dam is detonated and even more spectacularly later on when a passenger aircraft is blown up as it comes in to land....awesome stuff!

Regretfully, I must also say that the action scenes, such as those mentioned are sadly far too infrequent with the 'filling' in between them proving to be somewhat less than engaging in comparison.

The performances are all fine with Kinski especially on typically snide and evil top form. Also of note is the soundtrack by the legendary Ennio Morricone which really lifts the action sequences up yet another notch.

Overall then, whilst this may certainly represent one of, if not the pinnacle of Margheriti's work visually (and possibly budgetary), for me at least, this is most certainly not the directors best effort in the genre. That accolade would, in my humble opinion, go to the classic The Last Hunter for it's sheer entertainment value.

As a kid I saw CODENAME: WILDGEESE and was none-too-impressed. Since then, I've developed more of a taste for these Italian films and found that Antonio Margheriti is possibly the best of the bunch when it comes to action scenes. Bruno Mattei is a close contender (and no I am not joking) but Margheriti takes the cake for best explosion-filmer in Italian cinema.

The airplane explosion at the airport about halfway through is reason enough to track down this movie. It looks completely awesome! Equally cool is a massive oil refinery/train explosion later in the film, not recycled footage from THE LAST HUNTER either! Also notable are a couple helicopter explosions and a huge dam getting busted.

The plot is negligible and the acting and photography pretty routine, but the great cast and action sequences make up for that. Klaus Kinski is underused as usual, but appears to be having a lot of fun firing blanks from his M-16 and mowing down dozens of extras. The (Morricone?) musical score is pretty light and well-used for the most part, working well with the action scenes. However, Margheriti undermines the ending of the film with a completely awful song "In The War" which plays over the ending credits. This is pretty similar to the endings of a lot of his films from the time period, though it doesn't end with a freeze-frame oddly enough.

If you're a serious action buff, you shouldn't go without this movie!

This film was made after the success of the first film directed by Antonio Margheriti CODENAME WILDGEESE which also starred Lewis Collins and Klaus Kinski .This film has a much larger budget than the first film and it is much better, the special effects coordinated by Margheritis son Edoardo are very good.I would have to say some of the action set pieces are spectacular and well executed and would stand up in any Hollywood action production and i would highly recommend this film to action and fans of cult film it is produced by swiss producer Erwin c Dietrich.Also the cast includes John Steiner a usual face in many euro films and Alaln Collins ,Hans Leutenegger.

Italian B movies don't get better than this. Great cast, fantastic action sequences, great score and top notch direction from old hand Antonio Margheriti. If there was a trio of movies that should be released on DVD it is CODENAME WILDGEESE, this and THE COMMANDER. Maybe Anchor Bay will do the right thing and get it out on disc.

The film is quite well shot, it has some good stars-Kinski, Collins, and Steiner in.

I enjoyed the mixing of scenes shot in the Philippines and Venezula, even though a little confusing.

The special FX and explosion scenes are very well executed.

The budget is equal to that of an 80s Hollywood blockbuster and it shows.

A good film, the helicopter attack scene is another highlight.

The director Anthony M Dawson was a good action director, not the best, but still very good.

Kinski fans should enjoy it, as well as general cinema fans.