I will show you where the Iron Crosses grow!

Rating: Null/10 (7 April 2013)

Directed by Sam Peckinpah, "Cross of Iron" stars James Coburn as Corporal Steiner, a German officer who leads a ragged band of soldiers against Russian forces during WW2. Set during the Soviet's Caucasus operations, which forced the German Wehrmacht to retreat in late 1943, the film is typical of Peckinpah: lots of squibs, slow motion deaths, cross-cutting and wistful machismo.
Though praised by Orson Welles, and though it contains 2 or 3 good sequences during its final act, "Cross" is a thin, routine war film. Peckinpah can't compete with the macho poetry of Sam Fuller, the film's moments of sentimentality/pathos are wholly generic (a kid dies, men are betrayed etc), its battles are repetitive, and the film hilariously continues the "Steiner cliché". This is a cliché, common in films and novels, in which we're asked to sympathise with a cool, rebellious, skilled, anti-authoritarian, deadly-but-kind German soldier who's literally always called Steiner.
"Cross of Iron" contains a subplot which watches as Steiner, played by the always likable James Coburn, locks horns with an aristocratic Captain who betrays Steiner and his men in favour for meaningless accolades. Their relationship is offered as being representative of Germany during WW2. The German people, in other words, were led astray by selfish, inept leaders who marched a country headlong toward its death.
"Cross of Iron" is oft praised for being "about the German perspective". While this is true to some extent, the film does little to challenge mainstream preconceptions toward WW2. You might say a braver film would have portrayed "Allied" forces behaving as the Wehrmacht does here. Indeed, the Allies killed (through designed starvation and forced labour) more Germans in the five peace time years following WW2 than died during the entire European theatre. Which is not to say that WW2 films should pick sides, but rather that one should recognise that Axis Imperialism was formally no different to Allied Imperialism during this period (indeed, British Imperialism and desires to preserve a kind of monachist feudalism, led directly to WW2). "Cross of Iron", meanwhile, merely reinforces your typical, reductive view of WW2.
6/10 – Worth one viewing.