War Pigs (2015)

So many holes in the plot, miscast roles, bad acting and special effects. Mickey Rourke has a small role as a 1940's American military officer who wears a cowboy hat over his bleached long stringy hair, talking like he just woke up on the floor of a drunk tank. Dolph Lundgren plays a 1940's French military officer who has an accent he seems to be trying out for the first time and keeps changing throughout the film. They lead a group of surly, but tough GIs who call themselves War Pigs "because they like to get dirty" into enemy territory to look at a big super gun and draw some pictures. There's no explanation of why they don't take photographs or why Allied planes don't just bomb the thing. The whole mission has no point. The dangerous aspect of going many miles behind enemy lines is lost when they drive their jeeps along a nice mountain road as if they're on a camping trip, and easily drive back on the same road after destroying the super gun with a stolen tank. No attempt for the enemy to chase them or intercept them at any point in their escape. Cover photos for this waste of film prominently show a character who only appears in the first few minutes, and Mickey Rourke wearing a helmet as if he's part of the War Pigs. He never wears a helmet and he doesn't even take part in the War Pigs mission.

Where do I begin? The unrealistic training? The Dolph Lungdren doing his "French" impression? This movie should of never been made. I am so surprised how much money is wasted in movies like this. You know the plot in the first 2 minutes ("Windtalkers" for example) where a ranking officer gets his men killed, along with his best friend. Then he gets demoted, then has to command a ragtag group, I mean come on. The acting is terrible, the impressions are laughable, the script is dreadful and another thing, they smoke a crazy amount. 4-5 smokes every minute, when they are running, talking, training, dying. This movie just shows what people will do for money. I don't what else to say, the movie in all is just boring, repetitive, dull and uninteresting. You will walk away from this movie either aggravated or so stoned you forgot what happened.

It seems many are quick to rip this movie a new anus. I'll be generous where others have not, though, despite the fact that this film is entirely unrealistic. I heard of it when it was being produced and have expected it to have a low budget and less than professional production team - that and I have a tolerant and appreciative mindset for amateurs seeking to make war-films, as I have always wanted to do that myself. I was impressed to see some more renowned actors present, albeit their performance was less than spectacular.The movie was only an hour and a half, so I can't say it was a waste of time per se, but probably best it wasn't longer; though the build-up was a bit much for such a brief engagement. My biggest gripes really concern the unrealistic combat and poor nature of the characters and the uniforms/equipment. I won't nitpick too much since for the average viewer such anomalies are irrelevant, but I'm rather tired of these mid-20th century style one-sided propaganda-like films... How does a small squad, almost all of whom cannot speak German and are barely even trying to wear the German uniforms they stole manage to elude what appears to be at least an entire German company - SS at that, and escape without losing a single man? Ridiculous. No way in hell would German soldiers have been that inept.This film is a buzz flick for the amateur viewer, not an actual war film. Don't expect more (perhaps even less) than what you'd see at a World War II reenactment!

"Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed" director Ryan Little has made his fourth World War II combat film with "War Pigs," but it doesn't surpass his earlier "Saints and Soldiers: The Void." Basically, Little and scenarist Steven Luke, working from a story by Andrew Kightlinger and Adam Emerson, have appropriated two of the biggest World War II studio releases with one from the 1970s. "War Pigs" opens with our hero, Captain Jack Wosick (Luke Goss of "Blade II"), leading Sergeant McGreevy (Chuck Liddell of "Kick Ass 2" and his men into a debacle. All of his men die, but he survives. Wosick believes his orders were screwed up. Officially disgraced, Wosick suffers the loss of a bar until Major A.J. Redding (Mickey Rourke of "The Expendables") shows up and offers Wosick the chance to redeem himself. The plot about the captain leading his men into disaster is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's officer in "Kelly's Heroes" who had lost this bars because he led the wrong attack. Major Redding wants Wosick to take a squad of G.I.s behind enemy lines to obtain information about a long-range German artillery piece that has the potential to wreck deadly havoc onto Allied lines. Wosick getting stuck with a group of misfits recalls "The Dirty Dozen," and he has to whip these guys into shape for the mission. Finally, because they are checking out the big German gun and ultimately wind up destroying it, "War Pigs" evokes memories of the Gregory Peck movie "The Guns of Navarone. At least, Little and his writers draw from the best Twentieth Century combat films about World War II. Little and company add a French Foreign Legion officer to diversify the heroic line-up, and Dolph Lundgren has his own reasons for hating the Nazis as Captain Hans Picault. Most of the combat occurs in the first part of "War Pigs" and in the last half of the movie. The middle of the movie concerns the efforts of Lieutenant Wosick and Picault as they get their misfits in shape for their objective. Wosick goes head-to-head with his new non-com, Sergeant August Chambers (Noah Segan of "Looper"), who abhors officers as much as orders. Eventually, they reconcile themselves to each other, and our heroes embark on their mission. The big problem with "War Pigs" is they spend a lot of time talking before they finally swing into action. During their first encounter with the enemy, Wosick is knocked unconscious when a Nazi potato masher grenade lands nearby, and the Germans capture not only Chambers but also Preacher (Stephen Luke), while Picault and his men stop a Nazi vehicle and kill all the soldiers. Picault has no choice in the matter when a German tank officer spots their hidden American jeep. Meantime, the German patrol that surprised Wosick takes their two prisoners to their headquarters where the huge artillery piece is situated. The interrogation that follows gets pretty rough, but the Americans survive this encounter. Although they have only been ordered to draw a sketch of the gun, Wosick changes their orders. Picault and his men masquerade as Germans and Wosick joins them in a Nazi uniform. Aside from too much talking, the other problem with "War Pigs" is that none of our heroes dies during their foray against the enemy. Everything is too good to be true. Indeed, Picault is wounded, but he survives. Significantly, Picault has to fire only one tank shell to destroy the huge gun. "War Pigs" qualifies as a routine World War II movie with a happy ending. In a sense, "War Pigs" hearkens back to the propaganda combat epics made during World War II that depicted Americans as indestructible. Mickey Rourke makes a strange Major with a Stetson. The Utah scenery effectively substitutes for Europe.