Contender for the title of greatest war film of all time

Rating: 10/10 (10 October 2009)

This was Sam Peckinpah's only war film, having made his name with Westerns and then crime thrillers. The transition is seamless though, not only because some of his Westerns contained military characters and war as their backdrop, or the opportunity it gives him for gripping bloody action, but perhaps most crucially because it enables him to explore his favourite themes in a new setting.
As usual with Peckinpah, foremost among the themes of this film are men, their loyalty to one another, a team of hard-bitten old stagers fighting a losing battle buffeted by forces beyond their control, and sticking to your code in a brutal world. James Coburn is brilliant as Steiner, ably supported by a range of character actors as his comrades in the trenches, with a great international cast providing their support, including James Mason, David Warner and Maximilian Schell as Steiner's antagonist, the ambitious but devious Stransky.
To Peckinpah's eternal credit though, while telling his story of rough men in a rougher world, he gives a superbly detailed account of the squalor, fear, brutality and futility of the war on the Russian front. Although not blessed with the budget and technical advances of later classics like Saving Private Ryan, it gets across the scale of the fighting, and also captures the atmosphere perfectly. The Peckinpah style is very suited to the subject, shooting at different speeds, not flinching from depicting bloody action and alternating between tension, explosive violence and the daily life of the men.
This is a very hard-hitting account of the way with a number of scenes that are quite difficult to watch, and the overall tone is grim. However, the story is more than compelling enough to have you on the edge of your seat watching Steiner's platoon struggle, no longer for victory but just for survival.
Unfortunately it was also beset by the problems which Peckinpah's films frequently encountered. The director's own alcohol and personal problems made filming difficult at times, the international co-production had financial difficulties and as usual, the producers disagreed with Peckinpah on final cut and the theatrical version is not exactly what Peckinpah intended to show. Having said that, having scoured the world (my latest DVD version is the South Korean release) for the complete version, it's pretty close to what Peckinpah wanted to put out, resulted in a tremendous film and did well enough to spawn a sequel. It still begs the question though: why did those behind the scenes in films treat Peckinpah the way they did? Yes, he was difficult and didn't compromise, but every director's cut of his films was far superior to the producer/executive's version, with the money and time he needed he always delivered, and I would go as far as to say he was never wrong about what should go in a film.
Cross of Iron is perhaps the last film he made where in spite of any problems most of his vision made it to the screen, and the last where he was at the top of his game. For anyone interested in Peckinpah, the cinema of the seventies or good war films, it's truly unmissable.