The Best Ensemble Rugged He-Man Cast Ever !!!!!!

Rating: 10/10 (7 January 1999)

Time and Turner saturating the airways about once a month have taken some toll on the impact of this great action adventure film which has the best ensemble rugged he-man cast every to take on the Nazi's on film. Tame by today's standards it was landmark in 1967 for unlike any previous war film the objective was not to take an island or a hill or a fortress but to kill enemy officers. Released during a time when we still considered war to have some morale standards at least when conducted by American's what better way to justify murdering our enemy than using the dregs of the American Army in a top secret covert mission. Our heroes a mixture of murderers thieves and rapists were actually more villainous than their Nazi adversaries The dozen's casting was highlighted by the brilliant Cassavetes as the punk gangster Franco and Savalas as the sadistic psychotic bigot Maggott. Bronson, Brown & Walker are the brawn of the group and the film provides all of them the opportunity to display their physical attributes. Sutherland represents the only other major character of the dozen as the unit idiot. Lee Marvin was in his prime and I consider this his best and most definitive role as the leader of the dozen. Borgnine and Ryan also standout as adversarial superiors to Marvin. This was a man's film from beginning to end and although not as colorful or explicit as the excellent book it was based on it was every bit as good a film as was the book and the exciting climax was a big improvement on the non climactic book.