Jugando con la muerte

My review was written in June 1984 after watching the movie on VCL-Media Home Entertainment video cassette.

"Target Eagle" is an okay international action picture, made at least a decade too late to have domestic theatrical use (in a market long since ceded to interchangeable martial arts fare). Pic played off at U. S. Spanish-language houses last year and has gone through several title changes since being lensed in Europe in 1982, such as "Playing with Death".

Jorge Rivero toplines as a most unlikely Jewish mercenary and globetrotter code-named Eagle ( because of a tattoo) hired by Spanish police chief O'Donnell (Max von Sydow, another ethnic casting stretch) to infiltrate a gang of heroin smugglers. A femme cop named Carmen (Maud Adams) is sent along to act as Eagle's contact. Punching up the storyline is a key subplot in which the same bad guys involved in transporting uranium oxide to make plutonium bombs fo sale to Libya or other aspiring nuclear powers.

With the usual stunts and modest-budget appeal to James Bond antics (with Bond veteran Maud Adams on tap), pic passes muster with lead players handling their own English-language dialog while minor players are dubbed. Credits are slightly anglicized, such as Jose Maria Blanco listed as one "Joseph White". Acting tends to be a bit wooden until an hour into the piece, when George Peppard enters as a ruthless baddie who was once in the Foreign Legion. Using a cigarette holder prop, Peppard is very convincing as a ruthless, misogynistic villain, opening up new casting ideas for the usually heroic actor.