Considering how pussified manhood has become over the past forty or so years it's sure great seeing yet another one of these hot action-drenched movies where the guys are crazed and sadistic and the woman pretty dainty especially when compared to the bulldozers you see passing as members of the female gender these days. At least this film represents things like they oughta be, but if course if you doth disagree I can always direct you to some M*A*S*H rerun that's lurking about in the ether somewhere.
Sorta like a cross between THE DIRTY DOZEN and WHO'S MINDING THE MINT, this 'un's got Leslie Nielsen (who's second billed probably because Rory Calhoun demanded the #1 spot) as a disgraced former Air Force officer leading the standard motley bunch of down and out losers on a mission to rob an air force payroll that's undoubtedly worth a huge hunka dough. The aforementioned Calhoun plays the wizeass guy in the bunch always butting heads with Nielsen while the others come straight outta central casting, from a typically constipated Nazi officer to a suave Frenchman, not to mention an ex-army psycho in the Telly Savalas role (he being played by real life psycho Barry Sadler!) and future tee-vee reg Georg Stanford Brown more or less this moom's answer to Jim Brown. There's even a standard late-sixties TV-type hippie nutjob here who, when refusing to get his long locks raped, gets the scissors treatment while the older guys laugh and smirk at the sight! I'm sure this particular scene put a huge smile on the faces of alla them tough he-men in the audience who were settling down for this 'un hoping for some rough 'n tumble action and not some hippydippy love fest that's for sure!
And if you do happen to get overcome by it all at least there's the scene where female lead Lainie Kazan sings "Sunny" while wearing a low cut dress, and the part where she changes outta her civvies into some scuba gear might also get a rise outta you men who haven't seen a female form that wasn't decked out in tattoos and shiny piercings for well over a decade!
The moom does pack a lotta action whether it's between a couple of the guys fighting it out over some seemingly small infraction or during the actual crime, and thankfully the energy keeps on going even when the story slows down even a tad bit. Whatever, this 'un the perfect Sunday afternoon slab of entertainment that'll keep you engaged and remind you of the days when action on the screen did speak louder than words (mostly those being talked at you by do-gooders who are nothing more'n the uplifters outta some D.W. Griffith film updated for a new and frightening future) and hey, aren't you glad you were born a MAN???.
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*'n whatever you do, don't be scared by the appearance of then-soap opera actor and future sandalista Mike Farrell as an officer, though keen eyes will be able to spot the once-omnipresent seventies character actor Bo Hopkins as a sailor who gets offed about two minutes into his appearance.
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