Magnificent Seven Meets Great Escape Meets Catch 22

Rating: Null/10 (11 April 2001)

Spoilers herein.
Most films are not about life, but about other films. Sometimes you get one that recasts old forms and sets new cultural milestones.
Just a couple years before, Bronson was a part of a rag-tag group in the US remake of 'The Magnificent 7.' Then, that same ethos of inventive rebel was recast into patriotic honor with the Americans in the 'Great Escape.' This was one of the defining archetypes of the culture, just in time to catch and influence the Vietnam era. Now, the idea is brought home more clearly: rank criminals with defining but limited honor.
What's unique about this film: the bad guys aren't the Nazis -- it is them, their servants and women, the whole complicit people. Behind the humor of the middle part is a more harrowing reality of that war than seen in 'Private Ryan' and the ilk: the war was brought by and fought against the German people. No honor on either side, only film justice.
++++ Added later:
Sometimes distance sharpens the politics of the thing. At the time, the U.S. was conducting an immoral war in Vietnam. The Army was aggregated from conscripts most against their will; some significant portion were sent from the judicial system. The rules were brutal on civilians. It would be some time before the extent would become known, but war crimes were common.
I think when this film came out few would have mourned the loss of a few French prostitutes and wives. This was far closer to WWII than to the current time, and the image of stereotypical German generals being taken from lavish pleasures and incinerated in a cave would have evoked notions of justice for the holocaust. So we would applaud the black guy triggering the deaths.
How blind we seem to be about the present, any present.