More "Macaroni Comat" Please....
A. Snyder | 09/28/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)
"We Italian film fanatics can all thank Quinten Tarantino and his new Film "Inglourious Basterds" for companies finally releasing some high quality "Macaroni Combat" films on DVD. First we Got Wild East's release of "Churchill's Leopards" & "Salt in the Wound" double feature, then we got Dark Sky's release of "The Last Hunter". FINALLY we got Severin's release of "The Inglorious Bastards". Now Severin graciously releases yet another "Macaroni Combat" classic with "Eagles Over London".
Directed by perhaps Italy's best action director Enzo G. Castillari, "Eagles Over London" came very early on in the "Macaroni Combat" cycle being released in 1969. Right off the bat people are going to compare this film to his nine year later classic "Inglorious Bastards" and I will admit this film isn't as over-the-top or as fun as that film. It however is a very entertaining Italian cult flick.
The film surprisingly has very strong production values for an Italian film at the time. Most Italian films have very low budgets but this seems to be an exception. It comes nowhere near the look of big budget Hollywood WWII films at the time, and people shouldn't expect it to be, but for an Italian film this is pretty big and epic.
The plot is standard with British military officers a in pursuit of a merciless team of Nazi saboteurs though war-ravaged London. Throughout it all there is plenty of violence and cool camera work to appease all the Euro cult fanatics out there. The aerial combat sequences do look fake but then again it really looks no worse than Britain's 1969 big budget epic The Battle of Britain.
Overall I found this to be a very entertaining Euro cult film by one of Italy's great directors. Some of the dubbing is unintentionally funny but we fans come to expect that. People who can only watch high budget Hollywood WWII epics are most likely going to hate this film but this DVD is a must buy for Euro cult enthusiasts.
Severin does another A+ job with this DVD release. We get a great widescreen transfer and another interview with Enzo and Quinten.
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