10 MORE War Movie Plot Twists Nobody Saw Coming

Helmed by an impressive ensemble cast including Roger Moore and Richard Harris, 1978's The Wild Geese follows a group of mercenaries as they attempt to free Jules Limbani - the deposed president of an unnamed African country - before his execution.

While the film's rag-tag group of soldiers succeeds in liberating Limbani, they are betrayed by their benefactors in short order. As such, Andrew V. McLaglen's picture saves its devastating coup de grâce for the final sequences. A desperate race against time ensues as our protagonists attempt to get an escape plane operational, all while a bloody gunfight breaks out against Limbani's pursuers in the background.

Only thirteen of the original force of fifty men successfully make it aboard their plane, compounding the despondent impact of McLagen's final twist. In a sickening development, Limbani is revealed to have caught a bullet during the group's frenzied escape. The stricken president dies soon after the plane touches down in Rhodesia, rendering the entire operation a failure and a catastrophic loss of human life.

While Richard Burton's Allen Faulkner eventually gets his revenge against his duplicitous employers, it does little to alleviate the pain of this emotional gut punch.