Such a frustrating disappointment

A Masterpiece!

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

I hadn't even heard of this movie before coming across an ex rental video copy at a thrift store in my city. Though upon sitting down to watch the movie, it soon became clear why I hadn't heard of the movie before. It certainly boasts an interesting cast - Bruce Davison, David Carradine (who gives a very lazy performance), and Oliver Reed (who only appears for about six minutes) - and for what was a limited budget the movie's production values aren't bad, at least if you aren't a nitpicker about certain World War II military details. However, the script is kind of a mess. It tries to both be funny and hard-hitting, but the two extremes do not jell. It's too serious (and violent) to be funny, and it's too goofy to be serious. Another problem is that the narrative is kind of rambling. It takes forever for the central characters to be assigned their mission, going through a number of vignettes that add little to nothing to the movie. Then when the mission starts, there is still a clear lack of focus - the characters seem kind of aimless as they go forth, lacking proper planning and preparedness. It almost seems as if the filmmakers were making things up as they went along.In the end, this is a movie that is too strange to be immediately dismissed, but at the same time it's not terribly entertaining.

I should say it's a very poor man's CROSS OF IRON. The spirit is the same: German army troops, a platoon actually, lost in the middle of the Russian front. I won't add anything more to the other comments, which are very interesting concerning details, except, again, that the screenwriter was inspired by Sam Peckinpah's war movie shot in 1977. Brutal vision of war from the German side, in Russia, without any glorification of this very same war, helped by a powerful characterization - for this kind of production, I mean. A war movie that ends with a sort of moral. The cowardliness of the superior officers is pointed out very clearly. In this movie, they are not Maximilien Schell but Oliver Reed and David Carradine.A pretty good ending.

If you fell in love with the books of Sven Hassle, you might think this is a movie not to miss. Sorry, have to bring your hopes down.The movie doesn't catch anything from the books! The characters are nothing like in the books. Can it be so that they couldn't find any actors to resemble the characters in the books or was the directing so terrible? I don't know but I was SO disappointed after seeing this movie that I was sorry I bought it.As far as I'm concerned, this movie shouldn't have been done, at least not in the 80's! They probably had a very small budget which may be the reason for the terrible style of the movie and the story, that doesn't remind me of the exciting and cruel stories in the books of Sven Hassle. Skip the movie and stick to the books!

A very watchable low budget WWII action adventure in the same vein as Kelly's Hero's. You could say it's a cross between Kelly's Heros and the Dirty Dozen. It's a light-hearted adaptation of a Sven Hassle novel about a German penal tank crew sent to the Russian Front. On their return they are sent on a mission to destroy a train behind enemy lines with the promise of retirement if their mission is successful. The tone is one of anti-war and anti-nazism, with the laid back crew pushing insubordination to the limits. The movie has a good cast and characters. David Carradine is superb as the nazi Col. Von Weisshage; and indeed one of the things that make it enjoyable is that all the actors seem to be enjoying their roles. The other thing that makes it enjoyable is the solid humour that keeps a steady pace.