Anachronistic

Rating: 7/10 (11 July 2007)

This movie should have been titled THE HIPPIES FIGHT WORLD WAR II. Between Lalo Schifrin's seventies music and Donald Sutherland's laid back personality and hippie language, I thought at first I was seeing a Viet Nam flick. But this is a pretty good caper film. (How in the world a private overstepped a sergeant I'll never know. That's another way the plot strains credibility.) Yes, a private (Clint Eastwood) was giving orders to superior officers in their quest to get 16,000 gold bars from a bank behind enemy lines shortly after D-Day. He probably got court martialed for insubordination when he got back to the states, but the movie doesn't tell us. Guess we'll never know.
By and large, this movie is amusing, but the anachronistic language and soundtrack, as well as the chain of command in this scheme, strains credibility. Telly Savalis is hilarious as Big Joe, and Clint Eastwood kind of underplays his roll a bit until he starts hatching up this scheme. Don Rickles is his usual sarcastic self, and Donald Sutherland is from La-la-land. The video box cover says that he was probably the first hippie. Whatever. If there really was a guy like that fighting with our boys during World War II, his fellow soldiers would have ragged his ass to the dogs and back. And a pre-Archie Bunker Caroll O'Connor is a hoot as the general who intercepts their scheme on the radio and gives them medals for taking initiative during combat because he thinks they're pushing deep into enemy territory.
Very entertaining if you just enjoy the ride and don't think too much. 7 out of 10.