Review of The Eagle Has Landed (1976) by Clay B — 29 May 2010

Following Mussolini's daring rescue by the SS, Hitler decides that Winston Churchill can be abducted and brought to Berlin. The mission ends up on Colonel Radl´s (Robert Duvall) desk as something he should not consider as possible. But, faith makes sure that the plan can actually be done and Colonel Radl needs to assbemble a team to take care of the mission. Colonel Steiner (Michael Caine) is a German parachute unit commander who has been court-marshaled for opposing the SS in their actions towards jewish people. Despite that, Colonel Steiner is a superb and loyal soldier, so Radl offers him the assignment. At first the Germans send Liam Devlin (Donald Sutherland), an irish double agent to make the necessary preparations in England. And later on Colonel Steiner and his loyal parachute unit follows Devlin dressed as Polish soldiers to take over a small English town, supposedly on a training maneuver to await the coming visit of the Prime Minister...

This is a Jack Higgins novel made into a movie. Some heavy names such as Duvall, Caine and Sutherland keeps the interest level up a bit, but "The Eagle Has Landed" is quite static in general and a bit wishy washy scriptwise. I felt it just dragged on and took forever to get to the point. And once it did, it was not that exciting. I expected something better compared to what I got. This ends up on the so so warmovie list.