Unique story, lead characters done well, others not

Rating: 7/10 (15 January 2020)

This war film combines some comedy with drama with pathos with a crime caper.
It is unique. Kelly (Eastwood) is a busted lieutenant, who is now under Joe (Savalas) in a squad of GIs in WWII in the European theater. They have survived the D Day beach massacre, and are one of the more persecuted units in their company.
They combine with Oddball (Sutherland) and others to steal Gold from a bank in occupied territory that is about to be abandoned. Roughly $18,000,000 in Gold bars is for grabs.
The strength of the movie is the relationship of the lead characters, the "Beatle" characters so to speak. When two men get together, one is "John", and one is "Paul", and when three get together, another is "George", who is clearly the spiritual tank commander Oddball. The "Ringo" is a combination of other GIs, most notably the ones played by Gavin McLeod of Mary Tyler Moore fame, and Alien victim Harry Dean Stanton.
Which is John and which is Paul? John is usually seen as loud and boisterous, and Paul as quiet, but that is misleading. John is also the more reckless, more risk taking, less caring, more snobbish, more mercantile one, while Paul is the one who is more likely to keep everyone safe.
That makes Kelly the "John" figure and Savalas a total change of his usual character as the more rational "Paul" figure.
In fact, even though Oddball comes across as kooky, even he is saner than Kelly. Both he and Joe are more rational, more strategic, more open minded, than Kelly.
Kelly isn't a sadist, though. There is no such thing as a psychopath. That is a concoction of Psychiatrists in what is presently the darkest age of mental health. Mental health professionals need a safety zone in their dark age belief that there is no evil, so they wrongly state that some people don't feel empathy with others. Anyone from the hood knows different. Some are mercantile souls who have a goal and then try to obtain the goal, hoping no one is hurt, but living with it. Others are sadists whose first goal is actually causing suffering of others, and then pretend to have a goal of greed or envy in order to accomplish that goal. In either case, both do know that people in pain are in pain.
Kelly is the mercantile soul. He has a goal of taking Gold, and is willing to share it. He doesn't want others to suffer, but he's willing to kill hundreds of German soldiers to get it, because he simply figures he's going to kill enemy soldiers any way, so why not get something for it?
Carroll O'Conner provides the best comedy of the movie as a general who is out of touch with the troops.
The movie does have weaknesses. The weaknesses boil down mostly to one: dehumanization of the supporting characters. Aside from the "Beatle" characters, few characters are treated with any dignity, and most are caricatures, particularly a stereotypical crud played by Don Rickles.
The GIs are totally invulnerable, and bullets find very few of them, even though they never miss German targets. While German soldiers have always been the biggest whipping post of Hollywood, this is one of the worst cases of dehumanization. Hollywood even treats American Indians with more dignity, as they are always treated with respect in cavalry films, and lose mostly because they have spears and arrows against repeating rifles. German soldiers are certainly the whipping post boys of Hollywood.
Here, the kill count is even more ridiculous than "The Dirty Dozen", if you can believe that is possible.
While the movie seems to poke fun at characters, it never pokes fun at itself, and tries to come off as credible, which it isn't. The best movies are good because of credible supporting characters. This one lacks that for the most part, as most are clowns meant for cannon fodder, and totally "contrived" in "contrived" circumstances.
However, the movie is very watchable. It is well directed and filmed, with a logical sequence of events, and no lulls. There is bit of pathos, most notably in the mine field. There are some good elements, and it's basically a likable movie if one concentrates on the three lead characters alone. However, it isn't likable if one looks at how the supporting characters are so contrived.