The Professionals

Name: The Professionals
Director: Richard Brooks
Released: 1966

Synopsis

An arrogant Texas millionaire hires four adventurers to rescue his kidnapped wife from a notorious Mexican bandit.

89
Austin Chronicle
Wonderful but improbable tale about a group of mercenaries sent to Mexico to rescue their employer's wife from bad man Jack Palance.
88
Chicago Tribune
Exciting, beautifully shot '60s political western. [10 Apr 1998, p.M]
80
The New Yorker
There's something to be said for this kind of professionalism: the moviemakers know how to provide excitement and they work us over.
80
Washington Post
Written and directed by Richard Brooks, the picture is more style than content, but what style.
75
Chicago Reader
This 1966 film was eclipsed in many people's minds by The Wild Bunch three years later, but it's a good, solid job, and with Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, and Woody Strode, how could you miss?
75
TV Guide Magazine
A truly adventuresome, action-filled film that is played more for thrills than for conveying a story, The Professionals offers a field day for Lancaster, Ryan, Marvin, and Strode.
70
Variety
Exciting explosive sequences, good overall pacing and acting overcome a sometimes thin script.
60
Time Out
Brooks could certainly write a line and direct action, but his taut and disillusioned yarn of American mercenaries intruding into the Mexican revolution to "rescue" Cardinale had only a couple of years in critical favour before it was comprehensively eclipsed by Peckinpah's ostensibly similar The Wild Bunch.