Condor’s Nest: A twisty tale of revenge and retribution

With

Condor’s Nest, writer/ producer/director Phil Blattenberger has fashioned a Bmovie with flair — a World War II adventure in the tradition of the Republic serials of yesteryear, seasoned with the action elements familiar to contemporary audiences. Its ambitions don’t exceed its grasp, and there’s some substance amid the histrionics and violence.

In 1944, an American B-17 is shot down behind enemy lines in France. Several crewmembers survive — until the arrival of an SS detachment led by Col. Martin Bach (Arnold Vosloo). When they can’t divulge the Allies’ next move — because don’t know — he executes them one by one.

The single exception is Will Spalding (producer Jacob Keohane), who witnesses the murders from the safety of a nearby farmhouse. A decade later, the dissolute Will is in Buenos Aires, surreptitiously and systematically seeking out certain Germans who “emigrated” there after the war. His target: Martin Bach.

The subsequent journey that Will embarks upon teams him uneasily with Albert Vogel (Al Pagano), an expatriate scientist who had been working on an atomic bomb for the Nazis before he fled Germany, and Leyna Rahn (Corinne Britti), an agent for Israel’s Mossad, charged with bringing Vogel to justice — one way or the other. Vogel claims he was under orders, Leyna doesn’t care, and Will realizes that without both of their help, he may never locate Bach.

Pagano, a New Yorker, nails Vogel’s German accent and all but steals the movie. Vogel is the film’s wild card and don’t think Pagano doesn’t know it. He has all the best lines and knows precisely how to deliver them. Britti, who hails from Winston-Salem (!), also handles her (Israeli) accent well and imbues Leyna with an appealingly steely resolve. These may not be star-making roles, but they very well may be star-building ones.

Keohane, who previously collaborated with Blattenberger in 2019’s Point Man, almost seems overshadowed by the more colorfully drawn characters, but as the narrative progresses, it becomes evident that Will Spalding is already dead — inside. He is single-minded in his intent to kill Bach but has no future beyond that. He’s the one character who really doesn’t care if he lives or dies. It’s a cool, controlled portrayal of soulless rage.

Jackson Rathbone literally foams at the mouth as Fritz Ziegler, another German “immigrant” whose true, very nasty colors soon come to the fore, and James Urbaniak — recently seen to good e ect in Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans — has a high old-time personifying a historical character best not divulged here. (Hint: It’s not a good guy.)

Vosloo preens and struts as the elusive Bach and shines in his final confrontation with Will. Bruce Davison and Michael Ironside are also on hand in cameo roles. Their parts aren’t large — or particularly pivotal — but it’s nice having these reliable pros around.

At this point, it should be noted that although Condor’s Nest is set entirely in France and South America, a good portion of it was filmed in Greensboro. The filmmakers have done a nice job combining establishing shots of the actual locations with the footage they filmed here. Besides, Blattenberger keeps things moving at such a nice clip that viewers aren’t likely to concentrate on the local terrain. Another plus is that the CGI e ects are on par with bigger-budgeted Hollywood films.

There are a few far-fetched ideas, but none that haven’t found their way — in some form -- into the literary works of Frederick Forsyth, Jack Higgins, and Robert Ludlum, among others. Then again, Condor’s Nest isn’t meant to be a historical chronicle but an entertaining yarn, and that it is. !

Irony

Early on Jan. 14, in Monterrey, Mexico, Carlos Alonso, 32, allegedly broke a glass door at Christ the King Parish and entered, intending to rob the church, Catholic News Agency reported. But as he tried to flee with a statue of St. Michael the Archangel in hand, he tripped and fell on the angel’s sword, seriously wounding his neck. Passersby saw the injured Alonso and called for help; he is expected to be charged after he recovers from the fall. The statue was unharmed.

Recent Alarming Headline

On Jan. 16, a drive-thru customer at a co ee shop in Auburn, Washington, wanted more than an extra shot, KCRATV reported. As the barista handed Matthew Darnell, 38, his change through the window, a surveillance camera caught him grabbing her arm and pulling her toward him as he fumbled with a zip tie. The barista was able to pull away from him and close the windows as his dollar bills went flying. He drove o , but a distinctive “Chevrolet” tattoo on his arm was captured on video, along with his side profile. Police later reported that Darnell had been arrested at his home in Auburn and was held on $500,000 bail.

MOLEHILL, MEET MOUNTAIN

After getting into a dispute with sta at Jinling Purple Mountain Hotel in Shanghai on Jan. 10 over a misplaced laptop, a 28-year-old man named Chen decided to escalate, CBS News reported. He crashed his car through the glass lobby doors and careened around the space, knocking over fixtures and terrifying other guests, who tried to get the driver out of the car. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Are you crazy? Are you?” onlookers screamed at him. As he attempted to exit the lobby, he hit a door frame and came to a stop, and police took him into custody. It turns out the laptop had been stolen and was found outside the hotel; no one was injured.

Animal Antics

Carrier pigeons have been couriers of legitimate and nefarious items for centuries, but o cials at the Pacific Institution in Abbotsford, British Columbia, nonetheless were stunned when a gray bird with a tiny backpack landed in a fenced inmate prison yard on Dec. 29. The CBC reported that o cers “had to corner it,” according to John Randle, Pacific regional president of the Union for Canadian Correctional

O cers. “You can imagine how that would look, trying to catch a pigeon.” After some time, they were able to grab it and remove the package, which contained about 30 grams of crystal meth. “We’ve been focusing so much on drone interdiction ... Now we have to look at, I guess, pigeons again,” Randle said. They set the little guy free and are investigating its origin.

Fail

When Minnechaug Regional High School in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, was built in 2012, the district installed a hightech lighting system that was intended to save on energy costs, NBC News reported. But the software that controls the lights failed on Aug. 24, 2021, and every light in the school has been on since then. Aaron Osbourne, the assistant superintendent for the district, says the glitch is costing taxpayers “in the thousands of dollars per month on average, but not in the tens of thousands.” Teachers have removed bulbs where possible, and sta have shut o breakers to darken some of the exterior lighting. But help is on the way! Parts from China have arrived to fix the problem, which is expected to be completed in February.

Repeat Offender

An unnamed 62-year-old man from Garfield Heights, Ohio, was arrested — for the 70th time — in early January after he allegedly stole a shopping cart full of packaged meat to sell to restaurants, WJW-TV reported. The Walmart in South Euclid alerted authorities to the theft; in the parking lot, the thief transferred the goods to a stolen suitcase and threw what wouldn’t fit in a dumpster. He told o cers he sells the meat half-price to area restaurants. He was booked, again, for theft.

IT’S COME TO THIS

Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 of 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported a 108% increase in a certain smuggled item at ports of entry, Fox5-TV reported on Jan. 18. It wasn’t fentanyl or heroin, though. Seized egg products and poultry were the hot catch as prices soared in the United States. “My advice is, don’t bring them over,” said CBP supervisory agriculture specialist Charles Payne. Or, he advised, if you do, declare them so you won’t be fined. Thirty eggs in Juarez, Mexico, cost $3.40 — a fraction of what they’d cost in the U.S. because of an outbreak of avian flu that forced producers to euthanize 43 million egg-laying hens. !