The Best

Rating: 10/10 (9 April 2002)

I feel I'm preaching to the converted when I cite this as the finest, most richly atmospheric adventure film ever made. This is about mood as much as all-out action. It inhabits that strange escapist realm of nostalgia, of a never-ending childhood spent playing out of doors, of conjuring wild adventures where imagination and the thrill of anticipation are everything.

Why even begin to criticise the film's total absence of realism and plausibility? Immerse yourself instead in the beautiful, haunting snowscapes, the gloomy, winding corridors and stairwells of the infamous 'Castle of the Eagles'. You'll find such escape easy. Here is a film not afraid to dwell on the minute preparatory details of a high-risk mission. It patiently builds to the action sequences, avoiding the dizzying, elliptical editing style of so many modern-day action films who mistakenly favour the `now' over the suspense of an evocative build-up. WHERE EAGLES DARE rewards patience, as the snow and the chill and the gloom are given the necessary time to envelope, to ingrain themselves in the mind. What of the DVD release? Let's hope that it too rewards patience when it finally sees the light of day.