The Dirty Dozen
They are convicts, psychos, lunkheads, losers - and champs at the box office and in movie lore. Decades after it burst onto the scene, The Dirty Dozen remains a milestone among ensemble action flicks. Lee Marvin portrays a tough-as-nails major volunteered in the Army way to command a squad of misfits on a suicide mission against Nazi brass. Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Trini Lopez, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland and Clint Walker are among the 12 jailbirds who will earn their freedom if they survive. And Robert Aldrich (The Longest Yard) directs, blending anti-authority gibes with explosive excitement. Nominated for four Academy Awards, The Dirty Dozen won for Best Sound Effects.
Member Reviews
Great watch, very entertaining - Coconut_Willy
Yes, this movie is a bit on the long side. Yes, you really have to like this genre to enjoy it. Yes, you have to be in the appropriate mood to watch it. I guess I met all these conditions when I watched it because I really enjoyed it. The storyline is very good and uses the World War II background to pass along a number of interesting social commentaries on the late '60s and society in general. Although there has been a number of similar movies made since (sometimes with some of the same actors), this must have been one of the first ones to exploit the anti-hero aspect of war. The cast is superb, comprised of numerous stars doing a great acting job with a well written dialogue and interesting characters. The sets and locations are excellent, the soundtrack is appropriate and the camera work is quite good. It is true that the film makes little effort to make you like this bunch of reprobates but in the end, I must admit I was quite sad to see how few survived. Great movie.They don't make 'em like this anymore. - cathyottawa
I can't say I completely disagree with Lone Wolf, but I came away with more affection for this film than he did.
Yes, the "dirty dozen" are a bunch of criminals in military prison, most waiting to be hanged, but the film does make them into a group of ragtag anti-heros that you do come to care about.
This is accomplished partly by showing us that not all of these guys really deserve their sentence.
I liked the slow build. The bulk of the movie is about Marvin's Major training these guys to be real soldiers - something they either never really learned, or forgot.
I have mixed feelings about the end. Their ultimate mission that the movie builds to - it's not about facing the enemy on the battle field, it's about infiltrating a party - and they kill civilians and soldiers with equal disregard. I didn't find it all that noble, and had a hard time cheering for them.
Some say, had these scenes of civilian deaths been taken out, this would have won an Oscar, but the director wouldn't budge, wanting to make the point that "war ain't pretty".
There's a lively debate about the ending always going on in the IMDB message boards, if you'd like to join in.Too long and ultimately doesn't pay off - Lone_Wolf
With a runtime being something like two and a half hours, the movie simply takes too long to accomplish anything. There are massive stretches of the movie concerned with quite boring scenes, such as the “war games” where the dirty dozen attempt to prove they are ready for battle. It should have been a short scene, but it turned into a puzzlingly long and drawn out ordeal. The movie was fun at times, though, with some funny scenes and some humorous characters, some even memorable – but unfortunately because they are a bunch of murdering thugs we never really do grow attached to them.
In fact, it seemed to me there was almost no attempt to even make us feel any empathy for them, and as a result we really are quite unmoved when the characters start getting killed in battle. I wish I at least felt like routing for them more, but I just didn’t feel at all compelled to do so. I guess it didn’t help that even after 2 hours of working up to the final mission, the final mission still turned out to be disappointing. It most consisted of killing unarmed officers and their women with grenades and then shooting at a line of German reinforcements. It wasn’t really that exciting for what was intended to be a huge payoff at the end.
But in the end it wasn’t a complete waste of time either. Even though most of my review has been complaints, and while I was disappointed with it, it still had lots of fun moments. The characters were undeveloped (though they were entertaining), the movie was way too long, and the action didn’t really deliver, but on some level, I still felt somewhat entertained. I wouldn’t really recommend the movie, especially if you don’t like war films in the first place, but if you happened to be bored one day and it was on TV, it wouldn’t hurt to turn it on and decide for yourself.
Member Reviews
Read All...
Great watch, very entertaining - Coconut_Willy
Yes, this movie is a bit on the long side. Yes, you really have to like this genre to enjoy it. Yes, you have to be in the appropriate mood to watch it. I guess I met all these conditions when I watched it because I really enjoyed it. The storyline is very ...They don't make 'em like this anymore. - cathyottawa
I can't say I completely disagree with Lone Wolf, but I came away with more affection for this film than he did.
Yes, the "dirty dozen" are a bunch of criminals in military prison, most waiting to be hanged, but the film does make them into a group ...Too long and ultimately doesn't pay off - Lone_Wolf
With a runtime being something like two and a half hours, the movie simply takes too long to accomplish anything. There are massive stretches of the movie concerned with quite boring scenes, such as the “war games” where the dirty dozen attempt to prove they ...