Review of The Dirty Dozen (1967) by Cameron J — 04 Jul 2014

The Wild Bunch goes to war, you know, before "The Wild Bunch" even came out. I understand that Lee Marvin was supposed to be one heck of a Marine in really life, but it's hard to see Lee Marvin and not think of westerns, especially when he's paired up with an ensemble that features Ernest Borgnine. Man, with Marvin, Borgnine, George Kennedy, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, Donald Sutherland, Ben Carruthers, Milo Vladek, Al Mancini, Colin Maitland, Trini López and Telly Savalas, this isn't a particularly pretty Hollywood cast, and then John Cassavetes, Clint Walker and Stuart Cooper show up, probably so this can actually be called a Hollywood cast. Even the looks of the stars in this film are nitty and gritty, so you know that there is going to be some dirty fighting in this flick, and plenty of it. Hey, there better be, if this film is going to run two-and-a-half hours, which is a lot of time spent towards one mission in one film. That barely worked in "The Guns of Navarone", although I might just be mentioning that because as often as this has been ripped off, I can't believe that there is an older film for it to rip off. I'm kidding, because it's not fair to call this a rip-off if it is better than "The Guns of Navarone", which was still good, despite issues that aren't completely washed away this time around.

The film is fairly well-known for its audacious originality in quite a few areas as a Hollywood war film of the time, but the uniqueness is a little subtle, and yet prominent enough to make it all the more glaring when the film does fall into formula, whose reinforcement of predictability is problematic enough. The ambition to have an edge which is ultimately limited in the long run also makes it a little difficult to embrace the grime of the characters, all of whom are intentionally thoroughly flawed in a manner that is forgivable for only so long, before your investment begins to become a little loosened because of the characters' being, in a way, a touch obnoxious and occasionally limited in dimension. Perhaps there would be more consistency to a sense of humanity in this film if the story itself had more depth, because no matter how entertaining, this "drama" is more action-oriented than anything, and you can do only so much to flesh out an "epic" of that type. Really, the issues discussed up to this point, as far as being serious enough to hold the film back, pale in comparison to mere natural shortcomings that go stressed by an ambition to flesh out this film, with a series of somewhat episodic segments who shifts feel a smidge jarring, due to each segment being fleshed out for way more than a smidge too long. I've already touched upon how there's not much in the way of conceptual dramatic consequence to this film, yet the final product still comes out clocking in at a whopping two-and-a-half hours, on the dot, and it doesn't get there as organically as it probably should, meandering along with a lot of fat around the edges that doesn't really add as much to this narrative as it wants to. Again, there's little to really complain heavily about, with even the bloating not being as excessive as it could have been, but the film's reward value is still threatened by those subtle hiccups and prominent natural shortcomings, in addition to limitation in the quantity of things to praise. Of course, what there is to praise is all but worth lauding in its crafting a thoroughly entertaining war flick of solid intrigue, even in concept.

Under the weight of natural dramatic limitations which are stressed by a hint of conventionalism, overly grimy characterization, unevenness and fat around the narrative edges, the final product ultimately comes to the brink of underwhelmingness, ultimately overcome by an intriguing story's being done enough justice by sharp writing, lively direction, tense action and, most of all, sparkling charisma and chemistry throughout a solid ensemble cast to make Robert Aldrich's "The Dirty Dozen" an ultimately rewardingly entertaining war thriller.

3/5 - Good.