KELLY’S HEROES (1970)
Like Three Kings (which it no doubt inspired), Kelly’s Heroes drops a heist flick into the middle of a war movie and winds up making some interesting points about free will versus obedience in a military setting where the grunts on the ground sometimes have more in common with the low-level enemy soldiers they’re fighting than they do with their high-ranking, high-living superiors. “You and us, we’re just soldiers, right?” Telly Savalas’ Master Sergeant “Big Joe” says to a German tank commander at one point. “We don’t even know what this war’s all about. All we do is we fight and we die and for what? We don’t get anything out of it.” True, the sentiment’s a little sketchy when the conflict in question is “The Good War” and the enemy solider in question is wearing Nazi S.S. stripes...but in the midst of the far less good Vietnam War, director Brian G. Hutton’s celebration of enlightened self-interest reached out to peaceniks and free market capitalists alike, courting both groups with a truly bizarre combination of actors including Savalas, Clint Eastwood, Caroll O’Connor, Donald Sutherland, Harry Dean Stanton and Don Rickles. Sure, the movie’s pretty good...but I’m guessing it’s nowhere near as entertaining as the wrap party must have been. (AO)
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