CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Iseerphia All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

bensonmum2 Churchill's Leopards tells the story of a group of British paratroopers sent to France to destroy a dam just prior to D-Day. The idea is that the resulting flood will wipe-out German supply lines, thereby reducing the effectiveness of German forces (never mind the destruction to the French countryside). The British have a secret weapon – Lt Richard Benson (Richard Harrison) is posing as his recently deceased twin brother, Lt Hans Muller. Muller is the commander of German troops stationed at the dam. A German SS officer, Hauptsturmfuhrer Holtz (Klaus Kinski), is suspicious and is the major obstacle in the way of Allied success.In order to enjoy Churchill's Leopards, you really have to put all logic on hold and ignore all the historical inaccuracies. You can't think too hard about the ridiculous twin brother plot point or the fact that Muller's position at the dam is uber-convenient or any of the inaccurate military insignia and hardware. If you can do that, Churchill's Leopards is a reasonably entertaining film. The movie does take a little while to get going, but most movies of this type do. Director Maurizio Pradeaux has filled the final 2/3 of the film with plenty of action and tense moments. The finale on the dam is packed with suspense as the Nazis bear down on our heroes. The tight, confined action here is expertly filmed. Churchill's Leopards also includes one dramatic moment that I wasn't expecting and it ended up being a highlight for me. On a scenic overlook (speaking of scenic, the locations used in Churchill's Leopards are stunning), Kinski has lined-up a group of French citizens and intends to execute them in retaliation for the deaths of two Nazi soldiers. A woman named Elise (Pilar Velazquez), Benson's love interest, is one of the condemned. The frightened look in her eyes as she's waiting to die, knowing that Benson can do nothing or he'll blow his cover, is gut-wrenching. The entire time this drama is playing out, Kinski is pacing impatiently, drawing on a cigarette as if his life depended on it. The scene is filmed beautifully with Leone-esque close ups and includes some very appropriately moving music. It's one of those moments in a film that I'll never forget.There are, however, some problems with Churchill's Leopards that I cannot overlook (and again, I'm not talking about logic or historical inaccuracies). Some of the acting was spotty. I really didn't care for Harrison's Benson/Muller. Maybe it wasn't his fault, but he just seemed disinterested to me during much of the film. Also, I usually don't complain about special effects in a movie like this that was so obviously filmed on a shoestring budget, but the final dam scene is jarring it's so bad. Next, the credits prominently feature Helga Line's name. I always enjoy her work. Here, though, her screen time is limited to less than five minutes – and I'm being generous with that estimation. Still, the whole thing is fun enough that I had no problem getting past these issues.

Leofwine_draca CHURCHILL'S LEOPARDS - great title, by the way - is yet another addition to the wave of WW2 flicks that emerged from Italy in the late 1960s after the initial enthusiasm for the spaghetti western genre had run dry. It's a very familiar tale about a group of soldiers on a mission to blow up a dam in Nazi-occupied France.What follows is routine in the extreme, a film with only a handful of memorable moments (like the bit where a crowd of collaborators are about to be executed, an exercise in tension). The action is sparse and when it comes it's a bit of a disappointment, but then director Maurizio Pradeaux had only made a couple of films previously so he was hardly a seasoned expert behind the camera.The most interesting thing about the film is the cast. American strongman Richard Harrison plays the dual role of a Nazi officer and his lookalike who's brought in to help the team, while Klaus Kinski is the nasty Nazi bad guy. Giacomo Rossi-Stuart has a supporting role as another hero, while Euro crumpet Helga Line shows up (and is welcome) and Spanish actor Frank Brana (RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD) has a cameo.

arfdawg-1 The mission: search out and destroy a radio station in Normandy before the D-Day invasion. The volunteer commandos, misfits from the American army do not care how its done and will run over anyone who gets in their way.Hasn't this been done a thousand times?And isn't it STILL being done?The music is weird.The direction is spotty.Over all not really a good movie.Makes me wonder when the market fell out for spaghetti films that have one or two known American actors.

Sorsimus A routine Italian low budget war action movie about English dam busters working in occupied France. Best feature in the film is, obviously, the great Klaus Kinski whose SS captain brings a sinister edge to the final battle.All in all an interesting film that suffers from the same problem than most of its peers: lack of ambition. The only scene that stands out is the execution of the resistance leader (by Kinski's SS men), which makes one wonder why the rest of the film wasn't made with similar effort.