Hacker Cinema
The Wild Geese
1978 · Film · 134 min
Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen
A British multinational company seeks to overthrow a vicious dictator in central Africa. It hires a band of (largely aged) mercenaries in London and sends them in to save the virtuous but imprisoned opposition leader who is also critically ill and due for execution. Just when the team has performed a perfect rescue, the multinational does a deal with the vicious dictator leaving the mercenary band to escape under their own steam and exact revenge.
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They already made a movie called "Wild Geese" (1978) starring Roger Moore and Richard Burton, inspired by the life of another adventurer, Mike Hoare. I recommend watching it.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078492/
https://madmikehoare.com/
Hoare was a British Colonel in WW2 who later became a mercenary that worked a lot in Africa, most famously defeating Che Guevara and the (monstrous) Simba revolt, freeing a group of nuns and other white prisoners that the Simbas were holding hostage and ultimately being instrumental in defeating the entire rebellion using some novel counter-insurgency techniques. Hoare would organize small squads that penetrated deep into rebel-held territory and destroyed supply shipments and laid ambushes for enemy soldiers. Basically a launching a guerrilla attack against the guerrillas themselves.
Fun Fact: The Simbas were almost comically evil -- they were communist cannibals that practiced ethnic cleansing of rival tribes (not uncommon in the various African revolts) and set up concentration camps (which was uncommon). They were famous for cutting out prisoners' livers and then eating the liver as the prisoner bled to death. They had a particular fixation for white nuns - there were many in Africa at the time - torturing, raping, and ultimately killing a large number. Some were held hostage for ransom from the West.
Fun Fact 2: Much has been said accusing Che Guevara of racism for insulting the capabilities of his black soldiers during the conflict, mostly blaming his defeat on the poor quality of his troops, and arguing that if he would have had enough cuban troops, he would never be defeated. While I think this is a bit unfair given today's hypersensitiveness, Hoare never complained about his black troops and in fact praised their heroism. Hoare was an excellent leader in the field and had a close sense of camaraderie with his troops, which you would need to be to launch small-man operations deep behind enemy lines.
There are many other stories about Mike Hoare. For example he was hired to launch a coup in some nation, but the plot was discovered and the government set an ambush for his men as they arrived in the airport. This ended up in a shootout at the airport, Hoare hijacked a plane, and flew it out of the country, landing his men in South Africa, where they were promptly arrested. Arrested, yet alive. Hoare served a brief sentence in jail for that.
Hoare died a happy death, in bed in his home in France in 2020, at the age of 100, a well-loved figure surrounded by fat grandkids.
There are many such adventurers that went to Africa -- it was, and remains in many ways -- the wild west. There you can launch coups, steal gold, fight for land. And especially during the decolonization period and its aftermath, you had a number of weak governments flooded with western dollars but no competence, so they hired western firms to do everything from build electricity plants to run their armies or set up a telephone service. Foreigners were not just hired to aid in supporting and opposing rebellions, they were brought into all areas, but the military aspects are the ones that create the best adventure stories.
> Infiltrating and exfiltrating a compound, whichever way you can think of, in the Afghan desert with none of the fancy SONAR or gadgetry of other MGS titles is what the series has clearly wished it was since day one
That sounds exactly like “The Wild Geese”, the movie Kojima got the idea for stealth gameplay from: https://youtu.be/G0xy-XdMqS4