Kelly's Heroes (1970)

This movie lost a lot of opportunities to be a classic. Character development was lacking. Disjointed this movie is, because it cannot decide what its theme is-a peace movie for the hippies and youth, a comedy, or a serious movie. The flick gives a potpourri of these attributes; however, it falls short of the goal. The cast was up to the task. I just feel it missed the mark. I do admire they had the gumption to after this in a very traumatic time in US history!!

When Kelly (Clint Eastwood) captures a German Colonel in WWII, he takes him back to base, gets him drunk, and he reveals that the Germans have $16 million hidden away behind enemy lines. Kelly soon devises a plan and gathers a few other soldiers and supplies to try and take the gold for themselves.The main reason why I watched this movie was that my Dad suggested it a few years ago, and he was eager enough to buy it on DVD so I didn't want to disappoint him. While I know this isn't one of my favorite movies, I still enjoyed it enough, which is strange since I don't really like military movies. Even though my Dad laughed at some scenes I just kind of snickered at, there were some genuinely funny parts from time to time, which surprised me because I thought it would be some serious, bland action movie.My favorite character had to be Oddball, played by Donald Sutherland. By not saying anything specific, I thought he had the most laughs and stole the show for me as not only my favorite character, but the one I related to the most. He was laid back and liked to crack a joke, my favorite kind of people. I also found no real problems with anyone's acting, which is good for this all-star cast of people in this movie.My only real complaint dialogue wise was that (at least the version I had) whenever German was spoken, there were no subtitles. Yes, some of it was pretty easy to comprehend without knowing what was being said, but I feel like some scenes would have benefited from the use of them. My only other real complaint was some of the pacing of the movie. At times, it felt like there were too many shots of people just standing around doing nothing or giving an exposition dump. And I know that every scene doesn't have to be an action scene, but I felt that some of them just dragged for a little bit longer than I wanted to.Now lets go back to the positives, I loved the scenery in this movie! All of it looks beautiful and the sets look so realistic. I also liked the fact that there was only one song that would only play periodically. I think that was one of the movie's strengths, it didn't need music to tell you to be happy, or sad, or excited, you could get that based off of what was going on or the actor's expressions. But the song that they used was very catchy and I found myself singing it in my head the last time it was played. Overall, I would recommend this movie, but with the warning that it might not become your favorite movie, and that it's not a "for everybody" kind of movie.

What STONED 60's writer wrote "Oddball's" dialog? absolutely nobody talked like that in WWII. Were they only trying to appeal to the 60's "peace-nik"crowd when this was written (After all, it had to be written in the 60's since it was released in 1970)Terrible writing, story shot full of too many holes, without the many stars carrying this it would never have made any money.Clint Eastwood surely must have needed the money to make this one as it surely wasn't up to the story lines of his most successful films.I'm wondering if what we're seeing today is the original or the many re-writes that were rampant during the selling-off of all of MGM's assets.

Great war-comedy. Hilarious in its take on the silliness of the military, with a decent amount of drama thrown in. Reminiscent of MASH, the movie and the series, and Catch 22, the book (the movie adaptation was less good). Great performances from an all-star cast. Casting is spot-on: Clint Eastwood as the hard-bitten, decisive, take-command Kelly; Telly Savalas as the tough sergeant; Donald Sutherland as the hilariously insane Oddball; Don Rickles as the deal-a-minute stores sergeant; Carroll O'Connor as the clueless general. Also includes Harry Dean Stanton in a relatively minor role.Also has one of the best and most memorable theme songs of all time - "Burning Bridges" by the Mike Curb Congregation.