To have or have not

Rating: 8/10 (16 March 2001)

For many years this was the only major release war film I had seen that looked at WWII from a vantage point other than America's. Perhaps Peckinpah's third greatest work behind the Wild Bunch and the Getaway, he did a wonderful job with the Epstein and Hamilton adaptation of Willi Heinrich's novel the "Willing Flesh". As usual, Peckinpah was able to communicate through his ample directorial skill, the intensity of war without the need of the ample CGI present in Saving Private Ryan(Peckinpah relied on two special effects personnel to Spielberg's 113!) While much of the apologist ethos for the Wermacht solider on the Eastern Front can be attributed to Heinrich, Peckinpah massaged it nicely into a blanket anti-war statement. With a few stills at the film's conclusion, he broadens the scope of the story to reach most of the armed conflicts that had transpired since WWII. Historical liberties aside, Cross of Iron provides the American audience with a broader view of the intellectual and nationalistic struggles facing the German people in the Post World War One era as Hitler came to power. Ultimately, whether it be the rhetoric of the Prussian aristocracy, the Nazis, or the inability of the people to take responsibility for the dehumanizing qualities of each, Cross of Iron successfully communicates the vagrancies of war and its effect on the human condition.