Whether concerning crime (OCEAN'S ELEVEN) or a mission (SEVEN SAMURAI, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN) the caper film has one of the most rigid structures in cinema. The group is recruited, plans laid out, project executed, and then the inevitable aftermath makes for suspense & twists.

THE MAGNIFICENT 7 GIRLS strips down this often tedious (and predictable) format to the bare basics: lovely Nikita is out for revenge and to find the truth about a female commando mission that had been led by Sarah Young (we only have brief flashbacks of the gals in their camouflage outfits), and instead of recruiting a team, we get sex scenes introducing each femme who participated on the military raid as she rounds them up.

Watching a French-dubbed version of the elusive film retitled LE MAGNIFICHE 7 I was quite disappointed to see that star Sarah Young is relegated to more of a guest starring role, smaller than most of the other stars. Second-billed Kelly Trump, like Sarah a huge European sex icon at the time this was shot in 1995, is nearly cut out of the picture, leading me to infer that in France the non-sex footage was mostly removed to get down to the humping without delay.

That's a shame, because this was shot on 35mm by a talented Italian director Mario Bianchi, who helmed most of Sarah's successful films, including THE CASTLE OF LUCRETIA, SEXY KILLER (a riff on "La Femme Nikita") and AT HOME WITH PENE. She usually dominates the picture, but not here.

Nikita is quite appealing as the chief protagonist, and ultimately she gets the goods on obvious villain Roberto Malone (who often co-starred with Young on- screen, memorably as Cesare Borgia opposite her Lucretia). En route to that conclusion we're treated to eight individual sex scenes and all the women are beautiful. Standing out is a young Maria Bellucci, sporting like many of the femmes an appealing short pixie hairdo, as well as that distinctive stand-by of Euro porn: Anita Blond.

Like Bianchi's other work it is extremely well shot and could be a "real film" if the missing reels were reinstated. I hunted many years in order to see it, one of Sarah's rarest titles, and hope to see an integral version someday.