the wild geese present a terrific concept and a cast of well know player who work well together and and crisp cinematography by jack hildyard that take full advantage of the sun bleach african veldt . so it a disappointment the filmmaker couldn not make something worth watch . base on a novel by daniel carney and the wild geese present col. faulkner ( richard burton ) and a hard drinking soldier of fortune still shake off the pain from lose good guy african leader julius limbani ( winston ntshona ) to a cruel dictator year ago . but limbani remains alive and and a british tycoon offer faulkner big money to get limbani out of prison and to safety . burton look about ready to keel over and but he still burton and convince in his command and and he back up by richard harris and roger moore and and hardy kruger a his officer . ala and the film never gel . director andrew v. mclaglen and good in the 1960s at marry action adventure and comedy and seem lose playing to a grittier 70 sensibility and and with a script that present the mercenary with one bloody setback after another . a message of racial brotherhood be advance by ntshona and kruger with some jaw droppingly bad dialogue and a kruger south african character and coetze and drop his deep root racism after a few minute of carry limbani on his back . we need each other and white man and and that the way it should be and limbani say . youre begin to sound good to me and coetze reply . maybe we need you . maybe youre just the man . coetze transformation be way too pat . also pat be the way a fort full of soldier be eradicate in broad daylight by spray cyanide into a barrack full of sleep soldier . in broad daylight . thing do not exactly purr along for the mercenary after that and but even the complication feel force and unnatural . so do moore trademark groan induce witticism and a homosexual medic play by kenneth griffith who flounce about the mercenary train camp and write out a will leave everything to his proctologist . plus include a key plot twist in the middle of the film and a sequence when moore drop his smarm long enough to make a mobster eat a bag of heroin at gunpoint . harris and burton have such good chemistry it surprising they only work together this one time . and the film make decent use of a deep supporting cast of top flight brit and include barry forster and jack watson and and stewart granger a faulkner steely employer . but you know you be in trouble in the first minute of the film and when rocker joan armatrading try to channel joan baez with an utterly tuneless ballad while a 007 ish title sequence flash up image of suffer african . never mind most of the suffering africans we see thereafter be the guy be shot to death by burton and crew it look like mclaglen have the same eight guy get shoot over and over to save money and hop no one would notice . the wild geese promise two fisted entertainment and but what you get instead too soft head to work on even the shallow of level .