War is hell, in Robert Aldrich's THE DIRTY DOZEN, for the first time in an American movie, the plot discards any form of pretense that its German-slaughtering finale is based on rationality or a moral higher ground, neither a reactive defense maneuver, nor a justified tit for tat, as simple as that, shock troops are deployed as extraordinary measures to off as many Nazi officers as possible so as to put the kibosh on the blamed WWII.
A box office hits of its time, THE DIRTY DOZEN is an almost exclusively stag's party, this semi-suicide mission, dubbed as Project Amnesty, is led by OSS officer Major John Reisman (Marvin, hard-bitten to the gills), who is seconded to train a dozen death-row or lengthy-sentence served army prisoners into commandos, who can parachute in a château in Brittany where many German top brass inhabits, to carry out the reckless extermination derring-do, and those who survive can get their sentences pardoned (seriously, someone needs a lucky charm keep alive by the skin of his teeth, rising star Charles Bronson might be cut out for that).
In the prologue, Aldrich makes a snappy simile to foreground that the whole shebang likens putting one's head in a noose, which only can be applied to the most hopeless ones, who can strive for one last attempt of redemption or seek out a fat chance of freedom, and they are squarely dispensable, yet it is somehow unthinking that Reisman and Sergeant Clyde Bowren (Jaeckel) deign to join the battle of cannon fodders instead of staying a bit out of harm's way, individual heroism, is, as usual, in every nook and cranny of a mainstream American war picture.
But before that preposterous, patly formulated, but unsettlingly vicious climax, the film is actually brimming with lulz in its military drilling process of assessing, bonding and carousing, a gripping momentum never slacks, culminating in a stock victory of a rag-tag of underdogs punching above their weight to outfox regular soldiers during the war games in England, by that time, audience may even begin to invest in those hardened criminals with a smattering of compassion, not least to Robert T. Jefferson (Brown), the sole black prisoner whose commission is as per spurred by racism, and it is indeed him, who is designated to tackle the most dangerous job in the money shot.
No one can say the film aims for a realistic study of criminology, as the majority of the offenders are far less sociopaths than ordinary bozos or bitter cynics, John Cassavetes' Franko belongs to the latter bracket, and he persuasively steals the show in emitting the voltage of intensity that runs rings around his less affective co-stars, though, the most virulent one among them, the religious fanatic Maggott (Savalas, in his manic mercuriality), a rapist and woman killer can give him a run for his money, and let us all extol that providential friendly fire! In the end of the day, THE DIRTY DOZEN's male-pandering slant might take some shine off its conventional appeal as a devil-may-care entertainment kit out with a perverted throat-cutting lethality and workmanlike execution.
referential entries: Aldrich's WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962, 8.2/10); Quentin Tarantino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009, 8.3/10).
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