Two glaring casting mistakes in an otherwise superb film

Rating: 9/10 (10 November 2007)

Gene Hackman as Maj. Gen. Stanislaw Sosabowski was terrible - little effort to sound Polish, and it looked like Hackman became flustered to the point where he could not deliver a credible performance. On the other hand, an actor I could have sworn looked and sounded like Robert Shaw snuck in a confident and almost flawless scene in German (but I couldn't find him in the cast list). Court jester Elliott Gould portrayed a caricature that just didn't seem to fit.
Otherwise, a great spectacle. The air shots were amazing, where did they get all the equipment, as late as 1977? The parachute drops were awe-inspiring. The movie conveyed the real sense of inevitability in the face of negative indicators for the mission.