People are voting emotionally.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Churchill's Leopards tells the story of a group of British paratroopers sent to France to destroy a dam just prior to D-Day. The idea is that the resulting flood will wipe-out German supply lines, thereby reducing the effectiveness of German forces (never mind the destruction to the French countryside). The British have a secret weapon – Lt Richard Benson (Richard Harrison) is posing as his recently deceased twin brother, Lt Hans Muller. Muller is the commander of German troops stationed at the dam. A German SS officer, Hauptsturmfuhrer Holtz (Klaus Kinski), is suspicious and is the major obstacle in the way of Allied success.In order to enjoy Churchill's Leopards, you really have to put all logic on hold and ignore all the historical inaccuracies. You can't think too hard about the ridiculous twin brother plot point or the fact that Muller's position at the dam is uber-convenient or any of the inaccurate military insignia and hardware. If you can do that, Churchill's Leopards is a reasonably entertaining film. The movie does take a little while to get going, but most movies of this type do. Director Maurizio Pradeaux has filled the final 2/3 of the film with plenty of action and tense moments. The finale on the dam is packed with suspense as the Nazis bear down on our heroes. The tight, confined action here is expertly filmed. Churchill's Leopards also includes one dramatic moment that I wasn't expecting and it ended up being a highlight for me. On a scenic overlook (speaking of scenic, the locations used in Churchill's Leopards are stunning), Kinski has lined-up a group of French citizens and intends to execute them in retaliation for the deaths of two Nazi soldiers. A woman named Elise (Pilar Velazquez), Benson's love interest, is one of the condemned. The frightened look in her eyes as she's waiting to die, knowing that Benson can do nothing or he'll blow his cover, is gut-wrenching. The entire time this drama is playing out, Kinski is pacing impatiently, drawing on a cigarette as if his life depended on it. The scene is filmed beautifully with Leone-esque close ups and includes some very appropriately moving music. It's one of those moments in a film that I'll never forget.There are, however, some problems with Churchill's Leopards that I cannot overlook (and again, I'm not talking about logic or historical inaccuracies). Some of the acting was spotty. I really didn't care for Harrison's Benson/Muller. Maybe it wasn't his fault, but he just seemed disinterested to me during much of the film. Also, I usually don't complain about special effects in a movie like this that was so obviously filmed on a shoestring budget, but the final dam scene is jarring it's so bad. Next, the credits prominently feature Helga Line's name. I always enjoy her work. Here, though, her screen time is limited to less than five minutes – and I'm being generous with that estimation. Still, the whole thing is fun enough that I had no problem getting past these issues.

This is a decent example of the Italian brand of war movies which, although they never quite reached the artistic heights or levels of influence which their peplums, giallos or Spaghetti Westerns had, frequently offer an offbeat, mildly diverting perspective on familiar historical events. This one here stars Richard Harrison (as an English agent posing as his dead German officer twin brother!) and Klaus Kinski as a sadistic SS official; the fetching female parts (on both sides of the fence, naturally) are personified by Pilar Velazquez and Helga Line', while Giacomo Rossi Stuart and Antonio Casas have key roles to play within the Resistance lines. There are no overwhelmingly spectacular action set-pieces or jaw-droppingly clever plot twists to speak of, but I found this to be an unassuming and adequately handled time-passer which, unlike some of its Italian war film contemporaries, does not heavily feature Hollywood has-beens in an attempt to pass for one of their productions and is, in any case, mercifully short.

One of the most average Italian war movies to emerge in the genre. A great cast and some decent photography highlight this otherwise mediocre entry.The plot is pretty straightforward and familiar: A British commando team heads into France to blow up a German-held dam, while a British agent infiltrates the German garrison to give inside help. The twist is the British officer is replacing his twin German brother (!) Giacomo Rossi-Stuart (The Greatest Battle), one of my favorite Eurowar co-stars, makes a pretty bland lead. He doesn't get to do too much, unfortunately. He is reduced to uttering boring dialog and leaves most of the real acting up to Richard Harrison (Thirty Six Hours of Hell), who plays both a German officer and his British twin. Klaus Kinski (The Liberators) has his usual glorified cameo role as a German officer, though his role lacks any of the weirdness which usually accompanies his part. He is a straightforward, evil SS type and nothing more. Unfortunately, he sports a dubbed English accent rather than a typically nasty, thick German voice. Pilar Velasquez (His Name was Holy Ghost) is the French resistance woman in love with Harrison. Finally, Antonio Casas (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) has a glorified cameo as the genius leader of the French partisans. In support, Frank Brana (The War Devils) plays a French partisan, and Claudio Biava (Battle of the Damned) has a juicy role of a skeptical British commando. Look fast for Herb Andress (The Rangers) as a German officer, and Geoffredo Unger (Hornets' Nest) as a British commando. The whole course of the film is weighed down by some low production values that can easily kill a film. First of all, Vassili Koducharov's familiar score from Heroes in Hell, Thirty Six Hours of Hell and The Rangers is used once again. This piece of music is trash, and I don't get why so many films use it. The special effects are pretty bad, and one dam destruction sequence ranks as one of the worst miniature effects in film history. The movie is set in France in 1944, but looks like it was shot in an Italian rock quarry - maybe on some of the same locations as the earlier action flick Five for Hell. On the plus side, the cast all do excellently and seem to be having fun with their parts. The script is excellent, with an unexpected conclusion for one of the main characters. Maurizio Pradeaux keeps the action flowing whenever possible. When nobody is getting shot on screen, people are moving about and so is the camera. Close-ups, pans and zoom-ins rule for the duration of the movie. The final combat scene is excellently-shot and tightly edited, with some fine suspenseful moments.CHURCHIL'S LEOPARDS is a pretty average commando movie, with a good cast and fine camera-work but little else of value. It's an entertaining 90 minute piece, but no classic.RATING: 6/10

A routine Italian low budget war action movie about English dam busters working in occupied France. Best feature in the film is, obviously, the great Klaus Kinski whose SS captain brings a sinister edge to the final battle.All in all an interesting film that suffers from the same problem than most of its peers: lack of ambition. The only scene that stands out is the execution of the resistance leader (by Kinski's SS men), which makes one wonder why the rest of the film wasn't made with similar effort.