Irreverent and funny, skewers the "war movie" genre, and has young Clint Eastwood.

Rating: 8/10 (30 May 2011)

It's Memorial Day weekend, and on TV you can find many war movies playing. It seems that someone on the satellite menu always has "Kelly's Heroes" playing during this weekend.
Before I review, some disclosure: my first viewing of this movie was particularly memorable for me. I saw it at the Rudder Theater at Texas A&M University in 1978. Most of the other people viewing the movie were members of the Aggie Corps of Cadets. Now I don't know if things are still the same at A&M, but back in '78, the Corps added their own very memorable soundtrack of cheers, boos and hisses to every war movie that was shown at Rudder. This was no exception. Watching "Kelly's Heroes" at Rudder Theater at Texas A&M in 1978 was the same sort of experience as seeing the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" at the Nuart Theater in Venice, California in the mid-70's: you had to have been there. It was an EXPERIENCE. The audience didn't watch the show, the audience participated in the show.
Now that I've got that off my chest, here's the review: I love this movie, but it is not for people who want to see a movie that treats the war experience with either grimth or reverence. This is not a serious war movie, it is not faithful to history, and it is not going to give you the warm fuzzies about anything.
So why watch it? Because it is straight-up FUNNY and watchable, that's why! And it has a young Clint Eastwood in it. My god, now that he's old and all his recent movies have him as an old guy, it's easy to forget that when he was young, he was one good-looking dude! As the hero of this movie, playing the title role of Kelly, he is sooooo easy to watch.
And the other actors: Telly Savalas. Don Rickles. Donald Sutherland. Carroll O'Connor. These guys are GOOD, and if you're too young to remember them as young and to have seen them acting in their prime, this is a good movie to bring you up to speed on them.
The plot is a straightforward caper movie: it's near the end of WWII, the defeat of the Germans is a foregone conclusion, it's just a matter of how and when their capitulation will take place. For most of the troops involved on both sides, at this point the major concern is not getting killed in some unimportant final action as the war winds down. And, if opportunity presents itself, in picking up the pieces of spoils that are available in the chaos and confusion of the end.
It's in this disorganized situation that Kelly, a former Lieutenant busted to Private to take the rap for incompetence in the command above his level, finds out that in a town some miles away and behind German lines from where he and his men are stationed, there is a bank that is the repository for a truckload of German gold. Long story short: Kelly and his buddies figure that they're going to go for the gold and get something out of the war for themselves.
The movie skewers war movies in a gentle way, and it also takes the opportunity to send up the "spaghetti western" genre that Eastwood did so well. Donald Sutherland's character, Oddball, bears mentioning as a real anachronism. Oddball is a hippie ahead of his time, and if you find this sort of thing jarring, you're not going to like his character. You have to have a sense of humor, and remember that this is NOT a serious war movie, if you're going to go along for the ride.
I love this movie and when it comes on TV on Memorial Day weekend, I usually find a way to watch at least part of it.
And, I have to admit, part of the reason I like it is that it takes me back to that experience of seeing it for the first time at Rudder Theater at Texas A&M, with the Corps of Cadets all around me, barking at Oddball and hissing the Germans.