Hell Hunters

The latest directorial effort by the Austrian-born, German-based Ernst von Theumer, a purveyor of trash flicks whose productions spanned the globe, is derived from the concept of its creator, which he spent years polishing. In terms of craftsmanship, Hell Hunters is a relatively competently made but thoroughly unimaginative low-budget action thriller about a hunt for Nazis in South America, skipping between foreign locations and barrelling through hackneyed clichés, unsurprising twists and adventurous peripetias toward the final shootout. Theumer always took pride in casting famous faces, and here he assembled a respectable gallery in front of the camera, led by Bond girl Maud Adams, erstwhile Hollywood heart-throb Stewart Granger, who in his old age found a second career in German productions not only as Old Surehand, and the unwanted Bond, George Lazenby. Together with other more familiar and appropriately old faces like William Berger and Herb Andress, they serve as supporting characters in the film or are delegated to performing bit parts, merely framing the main storyline involving the handsome Nazi-hunter played by Romulo Arantes and a young American woman portrayed by Candice Daly. Their escapades take the form of a bland buddy movie (with insipidly quarrelsome buddies with benefits), while their dynamic is based on the fact that he says everything is dumb, which he stops doing only when they are having a shag under a waterfall. (27.03.2022)