Dirty Dozen

Dirty Dozen DVD

An all-star cast energizes Robert Aldrich's classic World War II action drama about a group of 12 American military prisoners assembled by tacticians and ordered to perform a suicide mission: infiltrate a well-guarded chteau and kill the Nazi officials vacationing there. The incarcerated soldiers most of whom are facing death sentences for a variety of violent crimes jump at the chance to redeem themselves. Major Reisman Lee Marvin the noncriminal in charge of the group whips the men into a crack unit uses them to best the troops of his by-the-book superior officer Colonel Breed Robert Ryan in war games then leads the steely antiheroes on their perilous assault. The film is studded with standout performances including Telly Savalas as a religious psychopath with a febrile animosity toward Germans and John Cassavetes in an Oscar-nominated portrayal as an insubordinate poison-tongued hothead. Ernest Borgnine Donald Sutherland Charles Bronson and football legend Jim Brown further round out the impressive collection of talent. Aldrich who by the time of THE DIRTY DOZEN had been fathoming the darker side of life onscreen for more than a decade KISS ME DEADLY WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? scored a huge hit with this rousing thriller laced with a stinging cynicism perfectly in tune with the increasingly skeptical tenor of the times.

Dirty Dozen / Movie [VHS]

A group of conscripted convicts, most already destined for death row, are drafted to go on a near-suicide mission with the understanding that if the Nazis don't kill them, the U.S. Army won't, either. In the hands of hardboiled director Robert Aldrich and a tough-as-leather cast headed by Lee Marvin (as a troublesome U.S. Army major), that's all the plot that's needed to make one rip-roaring World War II action flick. Marvin's mission is two-fold: first turn his dozen prisoners into a fighting unit and then turn them loose on a French chateau occupied by partying German officers. His crime-minded charges include John Cassavetes as a chronic malcontent, Telly Savalas as a ready-to-blow psycho, Donald Sutherland as a lame-brained lummox, and Charles Bronson and then-just-retired NFL superstar Jim Brown as a couple of clutch performers. The first half of the film allows the colorful cast of character actors to have their fun as they get their tails whipped into shape and develop shaky bonds with their commander. The second part is all action, as the culprit commandos wreck havoc and then run for their lives. Despite the fact that few of the "heroes" survive the bloodbath, the message here isn't that war is hell. Rather, it seems to be: war can be a hell of a good time... if you've got nothing to lose. --Steven Stolder