A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was starring Clint Eastwood, I thought I might as well check it out. Even though Eastwood has made tons of Westerns and was/is a legend in this genre, he didn’t make many WWII war features so it was pretty cool to see him in this genre for once. In fact, Eastwood did give pretty much the same performance he gave in most of his Westerns but, fortunately, he was still really charismatic and entertaining. Concerning the plot, well, it was actually quite similar to ‘Three Kings’ which is rather unfair since this movie was released almost 30 years before this cult-classic. Anyway, I always had a weak spot for heist features. Furthermore, to combine a heist feature with such anarchist war shenanigans during which soldiers go rogue for their own gain instead of dying or killing some poor fellow they didn’t even know was always going to work for me. I also liked the fact that, towards the end, instead of endlessly fighting with the last German tank commander, they gave him actually a cut of a loot which was a nice surprise. However, with a running time around 150 mins, the damned thing was too long though. I mean, I did like the concept but there was really no need to stretch it for so long. A bigger issue was that, even though the movie was fairly long, none of the characters was developed whatsoever. At least, Donald Sutherland managed to do a lot with Oddball, even though he was given very little material just like everyone else in the cast. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

7/10