Think of it as a Comedy First, War Movie Second

Rating: 9/10 (10 December 2009)

If you think of Kelly's Heroes as a comedy first, WWII movie second, and heist movie third, then it falls into perspective.
Part of comedy is taking the illogical and looking at it in a funny way. Oddball's "hippy" eccentricity was as strange to Kelly, Big Joe and Crapgame as it was to you the viewer. To them because it was too weird, to you because of the incongruity of 25 year anachronism. Other than the "negative waves", he could have been a beat, which was only a decade later.
As far a WWII movie, thank goodness they did it in Yugoslavia. Where else would they have gotten so many Shermans, so much accurate German equipment and use of converted Tiger/T34 movie tanks and get to destroy whole European looking towns. Yes, the 1944 tigers probably should have been painted sandy colors, but the general public want their tigers in blue-gray (a small price to pay for not having it be a US M60 tank or some other Hollywood cheat.) They at least paid attention to underwear, field jackets and rain gear. I just wish they would have shown the wear and tear and soiling of the uniforms as you go through the scenes. But then, the reality of providing that kind of costume aging vs having a clean outfit for the actor each day is just too picky.
Oh yea and the British guy who wrote this script also wrote the bank heist caper The Italian Job.
I haven't just watched this movie, I've studied it. I made a map of Clermont and then I followed the path of each of Kelly's men & Tank. It all works (except I have a problem with putting the location of the mill that Crapgame is taken to vs the location of where he gets wounded; Minor problem. I put this into a miniatures game that you can view and play. gamestercrafter.com There is a couple of other things about Kelly's Heroes there too.