A very under-rated film - the only war movie to capture the Ostfront from the soldier's point of view.

Rating: 9/10 (25 May 2018)

Based on the novel of the same name, this film is one of Peckinpah's best films. The ambition of Peckinpah's efforts are shown by the large scale of the events shown, and you truly get a feel of the story he was trying to tell. But something gets lost in the translation from book to film, and this film is at times too subtle or too overt, with a lot of the subtleties of the characters getting lost in the process. Despite a fine cast, with many first rate actors, the movie aims high but just doesn't quite achieve the scope Peckinpah was going for.
And what a cast it is, too. Including James Coburn, James Mason and Maximilian Schell, the chemistry between them proves to be one of the best parts of this movie. Coburn plays Sergeant Steiner, a man too long in the war and too jaded to be false in any way. His superior Captain Stransky (Schell) needs Steiner's help to vouch for him so he can get the Iron Cross medal he is obsessed with getting. Schell will go to any lengths to get the medal, and tries to convince Steiner to vouch for him regarding a battlefield event (that didn't happen the way Stransky said it did). Steiner, predictably, dislikes officers almost as much as he hates the war, and refuses to do it. At one point Steiner throws his own Iron Cross on Stansky's desk and blurts, "Here, take it!" but nothing less then a real Iron Cross will do. The two continue to be in conflict for the rest of the film, all done in a very murky subplot that is sometimes unclear - the main issue I have with this movie.
This was obviously a herculean effort by Peckinpah, and despite the muddy subplot that the film centers around, the battle scenes are fairly well done. Filmed partly in Croatia - that was still firmly in the Communist Bloc at the time of filming - the battle scenes feature genuine T-34 tanks along with dozens of extras during the Russian assault scenes and give the movie a real touch of authenticity. Set in spring 1943 - one of the rare lulls in the Ostfront between Stalingrad and the colossal battle at Kursk - it does manage to give a sense of the overwhelming enemy facing the German Wehrmacht during all stages of the war. There's enough great battle scenes here to distract from the, somewhat weak subplot and to show what war in the mud of Russia might have been like. Unfortunately the movie has a relatively weak ending - Steiner and Stransky are still alive but still battling on at the end. So the ultimate fate of the two strongest characters is left untold.
All in all a great war movie, if a little frustrating to interpret while viewing.