The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission (1988)

"The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission" is an American movie from 1988 that was done in co-production with Italy and Yugoslavia and according to IMDb, it is a German-language movie. I doubt that though as looking at the cast, they were definitely speaking English when they made it. Two more years and it will have its 30th anniversary. The director of these slightly over 90 minutes is Lee H. Katzin and he brought a screenplay by three writers to the screen here, to the small screen actually as this one is, like several other "Dirty Dozen" sequels a television release. And with this, I already mentioned the Oscar-winning original that this is based on. It is already the 4th entry to the film series and it came out more than two decades after the first. Taking this into account, it is still pretty solid they have Oscar nominees like Savalas on board and also Borgnine, Oscar winner, who played in these films since the very first.This is the story of a bunch of American renegade soldiers in charge of going against Germany during the Nazi days. Sadly, the story is really generic and so are most of the characters, even if the actors manage to elevate the forgettable-written material on some occasions. I may be a bit biased as I am not a military movie fan at all, but if the story is good, I certainly appreciate a quality work. This is not one of these, however. And as much as I already praised the performances, some of these are also on the forgettable side. Overall, the film should have been 10 minutes shorter or more as it dragged a bit on some occasions. For the most part, it's soldiers acting like tough guys and making the occasional (sexist) joke in here and towards the end, the focus drifts to battle scenes without heavy tank machinery mostly. It's about the foot soldiers. I personally thought this film was never really funny, touching or dramatically and historically relevant, which is especially disappointing as the writers tried to deliver in all these areas. I am not surprised this was the last film from the franchise not counting the short-lived series. It's not worth checking out unless you really really love the three previous films. Thumbs-down.

¨Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission¨ is an average follow-up with Telly Savalas as tough officer replacing Lee Marvin and the ordinary team of renegade soldiers of World War II . Telly Savalas training a group of rebel and misfit soldiers for a dangerous assault on a railway locomotive , the Orient Express . This is a rugged WWII actioner concerning about an experienced officer , Major Wright , he's assigned by Military staff (Ernest Borgnine who acted in the original and all the sequels)) to train a dropout group of murderers , criminals and rapists who get a chance to redeem themselves . They are a bunch of dispensable characters with no past and no future . Savalas reprieves a bunch of ¨Death Row¨ inmates , forges them into a two-fisted fighting unit and leads them on a deadly assignment into Nazi territory , but there is a traitor in the team .The prisoners are oddballs , rag-tag and undisciplined gang (a large cast formed by Erik Strada , Mancini, Ernie Hudson , Ricardo Yniguez ), under command a sergeant (Jeff Conaway) and a lieutenant (Heather Thomas). The team is hardly trained by the Major Whright . In this film Savalas and his motley band , the Dirty Dozen, are suppose to destroy and avoid the constitution of the IV Reich against the Allies . When they arrive in Yugoslavia are helped by the resistance fighters . At the end they must participate in the suicidal mission behind the enemy lines , to wipe a German train , number 420, going to Istambul by means of an assault over a strongly protected vehicle.Savalas as Maj. Wright assumes the character of the leader of the Dirty Dozen from Lee Marvin in the classic directed by Robert Aldrich and based on the characters created by T.M. Nathanson , being scripted by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller. This moving film packs frantic thrills, perilous adventures , relentless feats , and buck-loads of explosive action and violence. The noisy action is uniformly regularly-made, especially deserving of mention the rip-roaring final scenes on the train , including a spectacular crashing . Apart from the values of team spirit , cudgeled by Savalas into his rebel group , the film is full of feats , suspense , and thrills . Rough Telly Savallas is good as leader of the motley pack together thwart the Nazi schemes, as well as the largely secondary cast with special mention to Ernie Hudson. Atmospheric and martial musical score by John Cavacas and appropriate cinematography filmed in Zagreb, Croatia . This is is a wartime typical vehicle and into the ¨warlike commando genre¨ , which also belong : Where eagles dare(Brian G. Hutton) and Kelly's heroes(Hutton ), Tobruk (Arthur Hiller), Devil's Brigade (Andrew V McLagen) and many others .The exciting , original and Box-Office hit ,¨Dirty dozen¨ with star-studded as Marvin , Robert Ryan , Clint Walker , Jim Brown was followed by various sequels , a trio of inferior Telefilms (1985 , 87 , 88) as ¨Dirty Dozen II: The next mission ¨ by Andrew V McLagen with Lee Marvin and Richard Jaeckel, Borgnine , Larry Wilcox and Wolf Kahler , ¨Dirty Dozen III : Deadly mission¨ by Lee H Katzin and ¨Dirty Dozen : Fatal mission¨ also by Lee H Katzin ; both of them shot at the same time with similar actors , director , musician , John Cavacas, and cameraman , Tomislav Pinter , being filmed in Croacia.

the Germans all stand out in the open and get mowed down with a machine gun. the Good guys never die, unless its for dramatic purposes. the "plot" has so many holes its laughable. (Where did the German soldiers go once they rolled the fuel tank towards the train? Erik Estrada? Please!) And the whole idea, hijacking a train? How moronic is that! The Germans KNOW where you are going to go, its not like you can leave the track and drive away! What a waste. I would rather bonk myself on the head with a ball peen hammer 10 times then have to sit through that again. I mean, seriously, it FELT like it was made in the 60s, but it was produced in 88!! 1988!! the A-Team is more believable than this horrid excuse for a movie. Only watch it if you need a good laugh. This movie is to Tele Sevalas what Green Beret was to John Wayne.

I highly recommend picking up the two Dirty Dozen double feature DVD sets. The first one includes the classic 1967 film The Dirty Dozen with it's 1985 made for television sequel Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission. There's also a documentary on the making of the original Dirty Dozen and a historical documentary on the real life Filthy Thirteen. The other double feature DVD contains the 1987 made for television sequel Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission and it's 1988 made for television sequel Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission. Fatal and Deadly make an affordable DVD package that is infinitely re-watchable and highly entertaining - if you don't take 'em too seriously. There's plenty of humor and action in this double feature. It's a great way to spend a few hours kicking back with a quality beverage. Give the Deadly Mission / Fatal Mission double feature DVD a spin.