The script is a jumbled bag of war-movie cliches, and hack director J. Lee Thompson--who surpassed himself precisely once, with Cape Fear--is on auto-pilot throughout.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Director J. Lee Thompson has come a long, depressing way since the days of The Guns of Navarone: his film is sloppily edited, murkily photographed and shot through with a mean streak of sadism unredeemed by its clumsy camp value. [12 Mar 1979, p.89]
Washington Post by Gary Arnold
The director, J. Lee Thompson, was once a proficient craftsman. Not all that long ago he and Quinn were associated on the prestigious hit The Guns of Navarone. You can't help wondering what they, along with Mason and Neal, talked about between the takes of this howler. [29 Mar 1979, p.D15]
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Jay Scott
The Family is running from The Hun (Malcolm McDowell). The Family is not running as fast as I would like to have run from The Passage. [29 Mar 1979]
The New York Times by Vincent Canby
The performances are very, very bad, and the mountains boring.