The Panther Squad — The Panther Squad(Blu Ray)
The Panther Squad (Female Mercenaries II, Kommando Panther) was made in 1984, though it didn’t seem to appear in some territories until 1987. The film was the 29th & final film from French director Pierre Chevalier( under the name of Peter Knight)- he started his directing career back in the early 1950s with seemingly rather bland white slave thriller Human Cargo, going onto helm spy films, comedies, crime & dramas- most of his output seems largely more focused towards the French market, and doesn’t seem to have broken out from there. The Panther Squad is really his most know film, but it’s certainly not down to his skill & prowess as a director- as really at best it’s competently scoped, and at worse decidedly amateurish with a big use of stock footage.
With the Eurocine tag attached to this film & it’s female focus you’d expect that this might have a bit of sleaze/ soft-core action- but there is none of this, or any gore/ violent death. What we have here is a very tacky & extreme low-budget 80’s action movie. The film focuses in on the Panther squad- who are a group of six kick-ass & scantily clad glad women-led up by Ilon/ The Panther- Danning, who for most of the film is dressed in fake leather get-up complete with studded head & kneck band. The squad is called upon to rescue a female astronaut whose been kidnapped by environmental terrorists- they are ( sort of) added by suave-yet- booze bound spy Frank Bramble(Taylor). The films just over seventy-minute runtime is a mix of badly blended stock footage, slow-down/ bumbling fights, bad car chases, heavily accent & over the top villains, and a rather rambling plot- that doesn’t build too much.
I guess you’ll have to enjoy bad action films filled with
either under-acting or over-acting, badly choreographed fight scenes, cheesy dialogue and silly plotting- that's all tied up with a soundtrack that goes from camp funk/ disco, light synth line rock, and plinking dramatic music to bare sitting through The Panther Squad. It’s certainly not the best of so-bad-they're-great action films, but if you enjoy this genre I think you’ll get more than a few chuckles out of this.
On the extras front, we get a commentary track from Danning & Canadain genre critic Chris Alexander. This is an expectedly chatty track, which finds Danning talking about working with Eurocine & the Lesoeur brothers who ran the company. Going onto discuss the film's location, working with Jack Taylor, the film's costumes, and the other actress that played as members of the Squad. They talk about the film's feel of mellow/ laid-ness, and it’s unintentional humor, as well as quashing a few myths around the picture, for example, Jess Franco part directed the film, which he apparently didn't. The track's nicely laid back & amusing- which fits the film. Other than this we get a trailer reel of other Fullmoon releases.
In finishing it’s great to see Fullmoon put on more of Eurocine's back catalog, and while I would have enjoyed The Panther Squad more if there had been some sleaze/ gore/ violence on display- it’s a passable 980’s bad action camper…here’s hoping Fullmoon has some more Eurocine reissues planned.