Rugged Cross

Rating: 8/10 (20 May 2020)

My dad has been at me for years to watch this Sam Peckinpah movie and I've always resisted, never being a particular fan of either war movies or Peckinpah, but finally caved in to his exhortation and I'm glad I did. I'm aware of the film's troubled production history and it's true you can almost see where the money ran out, but what's left is still a memorable treatise on the hell of war.
Set during the German Army campaign in Russia, James Coburn is Corporal, later Sergeant Steiner, a maverick but fearless platoon leader of his own "wild bunch" of men. No respecter of rank or class, he accepts war for the bloody playground that it is, his nonchalance and insolence compensated by his individual bravery and military brilliance so that his unconventional actions are tolerated and indeed overlooked by his perceptive high command Colonel Brandt, played by James Mason.
Onto the scene however comes a glory-hunting, Prussian, Nazi Officer, Captain Stransky, played by Maximilian Schell who craves as his own personal badge of honour, the Iron Cross, which Steiner already has, but who wants to take the shortest and safest route to get it. This opportunity arrives quickly for him as he seeks to take the credit for a heroic offensive actually led by another captain who conveniently for Stransky, dies in the process. To get his Iron Cross, however, he needs Steiner to corroborate his invented bravery, setting the two men at odds with each other. Later at a key point in the movie, Stransky conveniently abandons Steiner and his men on the front-line, expecting them to perish and with it the one obstacle to his own vanity project.
With ever more brutal individual episodes, taking in Steiner's platoon co-opting a Russian boy-soldier into Steiner's troop then encountering a group of Russian female soldiers and the climactic final scenes where Steiner miraculously leads his men back to their own lines only for Stransky to cold-bloodedly order them to be fired on, the film ends with Steiner and Stransky meeting face to face for their own Butch and Sundance closing scene.
Peckinpah is in his element with the military hardware, explosives, man (and woman and child) - power at his command and delivers a compelling study of class, courage and honour in the heat of battle featuring his familiar trademarks of blood and gore and slow-motion "dance of death" choreography/photography.
Balancing his ultra-real but stylised action sequences with credible individual characterisations, Peckinpah comes up with a highly individual but often brilliant war movie. Coburn is magnificent as the laconic rebel Steiner and is counterpointed well by Schell's strutting career officer. Mason too is excellent as the presiding, battle-weary colonel while David Warner as his jaded captain acts as the conscience of the film.
I get that with Peckinpah you either love or hate his over-the-top excess but it's naturally suited to a war setting and while he has certainly here left behind a film with many memorable images, scenes and performances, they are always at the service of the story and message at its heart.