Rating: 
Summary: A Memorable Cult Classic
Review: I first saw KH while going through signal school and just prior to deployment in SE asia. Needless to say, the lack of military discipline and the 'we're in this for ourselves' attitude was very popular when seen at the base theater by a house full of conscripts. Filmed in eastern Europe, it was the first or one of the first war movies to use authentic German hardware, the Tiger Tanks as portrayed in the movie. One major nit-pick: the German commanders complaint about the gas is bogus; the Tiger was a diesel-electric drive, and diesel fuel is not nearly as volatile as gasoline. This was a major issue in WWII, the german tanks were diesel (and more heavily armoured) and the sherman's were thin-skinned and gas powered, hence their nick-name 'Ronson's'.Super war flick though.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: Great WWII comedy about a rag tag company of soldiers who seize an opporunity to rob a bank behind enemy lines. Donald Southerland gives an outstanding performance as a wacky tank commander with Gavin McCloud as his mechanic. George Savalos also gives a good showing as an inept artillery man. Clint Eastwood is great in this one and does not overshadow the rest of the cast including Telly Savalos as Big Joe the sergeant in charge and Don Rickles as the hotshot supply sergeant who insists on going along.
Rating:
Summary: Great Guy Movie Award Winner
Review: Easily stands in the ranks with The Man Who Would Be King and Jeremiah Johnson.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious WWII movie!
Review: I hadn't heard of this film until recently, and now I can't stop thinking about it. It's one of those rare movie-watching experiences where everything clicks. The performances are outstanding and hilarious. So many well-known actors . . . Don Rickles, one of my favorites, among them. Telly Savalas gives what I consider his best performance ever. Clint is still cool and calculated, but he fits in quite well as the leader of this crazy group of GI misfits who go after gold behind enemy lines. I was a bit startled at the beginning with the music from some hippie choir and Donald Sutherland's hippie-like character (his tank crew looks more like a hippie commune than anything military). The infusion of anything reminiscent of the 1970s, as contrasted with the 1940s, results in a funky temporal vortex. However, the contrast actually kind of grew on me. Besides, the movie is pretty authentic when it comes to equipment, gear, uniforms, etc. By far, the funniest part of the movie is when Clint, Sutherland and Savalas confront a German tank commander . . . watch the German's eyes when Clint tells him what's in the bank. Hilarious!!! All in all, a really fun film to watch. See it!!!
Rating:
Summary: MASH meets Private Ryan meets Oceans Seven
Review: I know, it's not as good as any of these movies overall, but in certain parts, it held more than its own. Set in WW II, the members of a recon platoon use realist weapons and settings (Filmed in Yugoslavia) and act like they are from the 70's. (Greatest line ever - " I'm eating some cheese, drinking some wine and catching some ray's"). The action focuses on $16 million in gold that the Germans have stolen from the French and Clint Eastwood and his platoon are determined to get and keep as their own. Along the way they pick up intentional and unwanted comrades enroute to the loot. Great ending ('up yours, baby') Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Don Rickles, and Gavin MacLeod are great as members of his platoon, or one of the people who volunteer to help liberate the gold. Carroll O'Connor does a superb job as a Patton-like general who is itching to 'bury his loser of an opponent' but just can not get his men off their butts to get the job done. If you are looking for a well acted, well written comedy about World War II - this is about as good as it gets.
Rating:
Summary: The Best War movie(comedy/drama) made.
Review: If you want to see authentic equipment, lots of comedy,great acting, drama, and irony this is the movie. You cannot go wrong buying this video just wish they would release it in dvd.
Rating:
Summary: If ever there was a 6 star movie, this would be it!
Review: Coming back from a weekend of endless WW2 movies ranging from Is Paris Burning, a relistic take on the invasion and resistance of Paris, and All Quiet on the western Front, a dark and gritty take on the German view, uncompared at the time, My friends and I looked for a movie to end the movie blow-out. Walking through our local video store, I stummbled upon the cover to this movie. Clint eastwood, Terry Savalas, Don Sutherland, what could be better. What we thought would be a out of date maybe good war movie turned into the best experience of our lives. filled with awsome action and comedy we didn't even think would be in it, we joyed in the masterpiece that we have just found. If you haven't seen it, get it, you will not go away dissipointed. " Hey, I can get 60 feet of bridge almost anywhere!... Smuck!"
Rating:
Summary: "To a New Yorker like you...a hero is some kind of sandwich"
Review: Exciting, humourous and well paced WWII action film sees Clint Eastwood and Co. looking to liberate $16 million worth of gold bullion from the retreating Nazi forces in Europe ! Director Brian G. Hutton (who directed Clint in the WWII thriller "Where Eagles Dare") is at the helm of this movie and again demonstrates his passion for fiery, loud battle scenes !! Eastwood plays Kelly...just another war weary soldier slogging through the muddy battlefields of France until he comes across a German colonel and top secret information about a bank full of plundered Nazi bullion...now all he needs is a skilled team to carry out this most audacious of bank heists in the middle of a war ! Kelly enlists the assistance of tank commanding flower child "Oddball", (Donald Sutherland in an unforgettable performance ) fast talking hustler "Crap Game" ( I don't think Don Rickles was acting ! ), battle hardened sergeant "Big Joe" ( Telly Savalas )....along with a motley crew of troops including Harry Dean Stanton as "Willard" and Jeff Morris as "Cowboy". I know some reviewers tend to be a bit critical of some of the humourous aspects of this movie....but what the heck...it's not trying to be "All Quiet on the Western Front" or "Paths of Glory"...the movie is a fictional tale about an elaborate bank heist thrown in amongst a very noisy war, and peopled with some larger than life colorful characters. "Kelly's Heroes" is an enjoyable little cult film and is a fun way to spend a lazy evening watching a "Boys Own" action adventure. Great to finally have "Kellys Heroes" out on DVD (although a few extra goodies would have been nice)....picture and sound quality is very good...and I always enjoy "The Mike Curb Congregation" singing "Burning Bridges" (the film's theme track)......
Rating:
Summary: Profit in chaos
Review: Clint Eastwood, you remember him as the Jet Squadron Leader in (Tarantula (1955) ASIN: 6302763835) is now on foot in the military during WWII. He learns that there is a considerable amount of German gold (element number 79, AU, SpecificGrav=19.32 and that is heavy, AtomicWeight=196.9665)in a bank, 30 miles into enemy territory. He must assemble a taskforce of loyal..Oops, greedy soldiers that are capable of recovering the gold before the town is taken by the allies. Some of the key people are: Of course Kelly the organizer and instigator, who is Clint Eastwood who played a lab technician in "Revenge of the Creature" ASIN: 0783245157 Telly Savalas is Big Joe. Much different than his character in "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home" (1965), where he was a Harem procurer that procured Shirley MacLaine. One person that did not change is Carroll O'Connor as General Colt who was listening to the progress on the radio and thought that the expedition was an enthusiastic spearhead. He plays General Bolt in "What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?" (1966) ASIN: 6302719054, Who looks at aerial photographs and thinks that the troops are in hand to hand combat. (Bolt, Colt, it is still Carroll 0'Connor) Last for best is Donald Sutherland as Odd Ball the unorthodox tank Commander. See him on the other side or serious side as Faber in Eye of the Needle (1981) ASIN: B000035P5E
Rating:
Summary: "That could be the perfect crime"
Review: It's not for nothing that Kelly's Heroes has enjoyed a growing cult following over the past 30 years--it's that exceptional. The cast is a remarkable gathering of some of the biggest names in entertainment by 1970 and each actor fits perfectly into his role in a way that's practically unheard of these days. I can only imagine the fun the actors had making this film because their enthusiasm is obvious--it rubs off on the viewer. This is a playful historical fiction, delightfully revisionary at times, and as irreverent comedy, the film is classic; it features some well calculated anachronisms, such as Oddball (note to Leonard Maltin: why do you think they really called him Oddball?), played unforgettably by Donald Sutherland, a Vietnam-era soldier/poet/lover/flower child, whose chutzpah acts to counterbalance the uptight Big Joe (Sevalas) and the disaffected, self-motivated Kelly (Eastwood). "Crap Game" (Rickles) is the quintessential New York hustler and the film wouldn't be the same without his performance, the unforgettable lines like, "make a deal, maybe the guy's a Republican." (It helps to see the film in light of its own time). The strength of the film is in it's characterization (many of the soldier characters coming straight out of a Bill Mauldin cartoon), the performances, and the story (itself a sort of classic, copied by the makers of "Three Kings"). And yet Kelly's Heroe's was probably the most accurate WWII movie up to it's time (and then some) for military equipment and dress. For example, the dark and enigmatic German Mark VI "Tiger" tanks, with their black-suited SS crewmen, are wonderfully reproduced even down to the anti magnetic mine paste. Kelly's Heroes is cool, confident, unassuming, irreverent, and early anti-war WWII movie (from a time when the war was seen very much as "the good war") and what better way to achieve this than as a comedy, even a black comedy (you probably won't see perhaps a more realistic and jarring depiction of a man stepping on an anti-personel mine than in this film). Kelly's Heroes flies in the face of contemporary political correctness compulsions; today an anti-war film has to be heavy-handed, symbolic, and have some sort of social or political message (as did "Three King's"). When "Saving Private Ryan" first ran, some reviewers compared it to Kelly's Heroes, citing that the latter was "not serious and realistic enough." Kelly's Heroes is growing in popularity as a cult film precisely because it's makers weren't so hung up on verisimilitude and social realism that they couldn't create a fun, interesting story with some good old-fashioned humor. That's fiction, Leonard M., F-I-C-T-I-O-N.
| 
