Somewhat unbalanced war film

Rating: 5/10 (16 February 1999)

We have here a typical case of patriotic war film with more stars than your average Christmas tree, with the usual convention that the bigger the star the more heroic they are. However, there is a problem: the historical incident depicted here was a military failure, from an allied point of view.
And this problem is a big problem. There is nothing wrong with telling the story of a failed military action, but it just does not work if you tell it in the "just look what great chaps we have fighting for us" subgenre of war film.
An added problem this subgenre continually suffers from is the Towering Inferno syndrome: the big stars will survive/succeed and we know it. When Ryan O'Neal enlists Robert Redford for a suicide mission we just know that this means the death of most of his soldiers but our star will come through unscathed.