twelve cool men

Rating: 9/10 (16 July 2008)

With the Vietnam War in full swing in 1967, they released a movie about WWII that took a comedic/bleak approach. "The Dirty Dozen" strikes the perfect pitch between zany humor and cynicism: these twelve men are on death row for crimes like rape and murder...and they're getting trained to kill more people! If they succeed, then they might get lighter sentences; if they die in action...well, that's that. Previous WWII-themed films had focused exclusively on the war - with no cynicism - but this one alludes to the Vietnam War while also dealing occasionally with racism.
Part of the movie's strength is the characters. In my opinion, Maj. John Reisman (Lee Marvin) takes a back seat to the assembled group. Among the dozen are religious bigot Archer Maggot (Telly Savalas), former officer Joseph Wladislaw (Charles Bronson) and Samson Posey (Clint Walker), who acts nearly catatonic. But probably the neatest is sassy Victor Franko (John Cassavetes), with his line "You slob! You slob!"; it must have been fun to film that! One can certainly see this as a precursor to movies like "M*A*S*H" (and both movies star Donald Sutherland) and "Catch-22". It certainly remains worth seeing in this day and age. Also starring Ernest Borgnine, Jim Brown, Richard Jaeckel, George Kennedy, Trini Lopez, Ralph Meeker, Robert Ryan, Robert Webber and Tom Busby.
PS: in 1998, the surviving cast members (Ernest Borgnine, Jim Brown, George Kennedy and Clint Walker) lent their voices to the movie "Small Soldiers" as the soldiers.