I Wanted To Like This Movie...

So, I rented the reissue DVD. I saw the cast, read a little about the plot on the back and was intrigued. I am a fan of late 60s/70s WWII movies, especially the "suicide mission" type. I saw that this was largely told from the German side and that made me curious too.

This movie was a huge letdown. The direction was so bad it reminded me of a Jess Franco film. The editing was bad, it just seemed kind of slapped together. I've seen better cinematography in porno flicks. The camera always seemed to be in a fixed position. Nothing about this film looks good. This had to have been a big budget film with all these actors involved, but it was very amateurish looking. The old Vic Morrow TV show "Combat" had more atmosphere than this thing.

The one thing the movie has going for it is great actors. What a cast! They are all pretty much wasted here. Everyone either sleepwalks through their roles or overacts.

Another point is how hard it is to like any of the characters in this film. I couldn't root for any of them. The most sympathetic was the Michael Caine character. Everybody else was either a fool or a villain of some sort. I didn't feel involved in the least. Toward the end, I almost felt like it was a documentary, I was so detached.

I have nothing against violence in film, but I was surprised that this movie received a PG especially with that nasty bullet shot to the head...

A strange and mediocre film...