In Search of Gold Behind Enemy Lines

Rating: 5/10 (30 May 2019)

While on a routine reconnaissance mission an American soldier by the name of "Kelly" (Clint Eastwood) captures a German colonel and discovers a bar of gold inside the briefcase he is carrying. After further interrogation Kelly learns that there are a lot more of them in a bank not too far from where his platoon is currently located. Needless to say, this interests him greatly but the problem for him is that this bank is located behind enemy lines. So to meet this difficult challenge he gathers a motley bunch of soldiers within his platoon to secretly liberate the gold from the Germans without the knowledge of his American superiors. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film had a number of talented actors which included not only Clint Eastwood but also Telly Savalas (as "Big Joe"), Don Rickles ("Crapgame"), Donald Sutherland ("Oddball") and Carroll O'Connor ("General Colt"). Yet despite the decent cast and interesting plot, I didn't think the film itself was nearly as good as it could have been in large part due to the performance of Donald Sutherland's character who was clearly mismatched for the time period in question. That being said, while I have little doubt that the nonchalant attitude displayed would have been better understood and appreciated during the Vietnam Conflict-or possibly even the Korean War-it seemed rather weird here. But perhaps that's just me. In any case, while this film wasn't too bad I also think it was clearly overrated and for that reason I have given it a value more clearly in line with my views. Average.