Waste of Money.

hyped garbage

Absolutely the worst movie.

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

Kelly's Heores (1970)Plot In A Paragraph: A group of U.S. soldiers sneaks across enemy lines to get their hands on a secret stash of Nazi treasure.The best way to describe this movie is Kelly's Heroes is the 1970s version of the George Clooney flick Three Kings, except that movie updates it to a quartet of American Gulf War soldiers attempting to steal some of Saddam Hussein's gold reserves. It isn't a bad movie, but it's far from memorable. Despite a hist of well-known stars headlined by Clint, the film stumbled almost as much as it succeeds, It has an agonizingly long runtime and long periods where very little actually happens. The pacing is very slow in some parts, while in others it's ridiculously fast, The movie could stand a nice trimming of 30 or so minutes, because what works works very well and what doesn't hinders the movie so much that it affects its rewatchability Fortunately, the action is well staged and the cast is the film's real strength. Eastwood turns in a fine performance but not one that stands out within his greater body of work. He's his usual tough but quiet type here. Telly Savalis and Don Rickles are fine, but it's Donald Sutherland absolutely steals this movie, the movie is a lot more fun when he is around. A record was made of Clint Eastwood singing 'Burning Bridges', It was released single with the B-side of "When I Loved Her" also sung by Clint, and written by Kris Kristofferson. Kelly's Heroes grossed 5.2 million at the domestic box office to become the 24th highest grossing movie of 1970.

Late on in WWII most soldiers just want to get to Berlin without dying; the last thing they want to be is 'heroes'. However when an opportunity is presented, in the form of gold bars worth 16 million USD stashed in a bank just behind enemy lines, some of them change their minds about taking risks. Soon a rag-tag group of U.S. soldiers is mounting a 'private war' through German lines to get their hands on the loot.This is a very well made film with a good script, an excellent cast, and fine photography. Made at the height of the Vietnam war, it is basically an anti-war satire. However, considering its comedic intentions, many of the battle scenes are as realistic and as bloody as those in many 'proper war movies'.The film was made in Yugoslavia (the part which is now Croatia). The Yugoslavian countryside passes very well for rural eastern France and (to a non-expert such as myself) all the military equipment looks very realistic. At the time the film was made the Yugoslavian army were still using military equipment with WWII origins, and from both sides. This must have eased the film's equipment logistics considerably.They blow/smash a lot of stuff up in this film and they blow/smash it up for real. Even at Yugoslavian prices it must have cost a fortune! The three Tiger Mk1 tanks in this film look very realistic. I wondered about this (I later discovered that there aren't three working Tiger Mk1 tanks anywhere) until I found out that they were modified T34 tanks. The Yugoslavians had already converted them (to a very high standard, although the gun turret is unavoidably further forward than it should be) for a domestic film production and they were made available for this film.The version of this film (which is also available on DVD and Blu-Ray) which has been most recently broadcast on UK TV runs to over 2-1/4 hours. Unlike earlier broadcasts which were doctored for 4:3 screens, you are likely now to see the film as it was intended, in 2.35:1 aspect ratio, even on TV. It looks so much better now I barely recognise it as the same thing I saw for the first time back in the 1970s, when it was 'a big film on TV' one Christmas.If, when watching the film, you wonder if there isn't a back story missing from some of the characters, you'd be right to; there was another 20 minutes or so to this film which was cut before release. Whilst they probably did the right thing in some respects (it would have been too long for cinema release). I like this film enough that I'd sit through a longer version quite happily.Some folk might now only watch this film because it is 'a period piece'; and it is one. But it is also a good film in its own right and (violence asides perhaps) I would heartily recommend it to anyone.

What STONED 60's writer wrote "Oddball's" dialog? absolutely nobody talked like that in WWII. Were they only trying to appeal to the 60's "peace-nik"crowd when this was written (After all, it had to be written in the 60's since it was released in 1970)Terrible writing, story shot full of too many holes, without the many stars carrying this it would never have made any money.Clint Eastwood surely must have needed the money to make this one as it surely wasn't up to the story lines of his most successful films.I'm wondering if what we're seeing today is the original or the many re-writes that were rampant during the selling-off of all of MGM's assets.

A typical World War II movie this is not. If you had any doubt it's all dispelled when Donald Sutherland appears on screen as Sherman tank commander Oddball. An anachronism if there ever was one, Oddball represents not one, but two distinct eras that followed the 1940's. His 'Hi Man' and 'don't you dig how beautiful it is' corresponds to the following decade's beatnik period, at the same time mingling with the Sixties' fascination with hippies and their 'freaks' and 'negative waves'. All pretense at a serious war film is done away with pretty quickly, and that's not even taking into account the impossible task set before Kelly's heroes.Thinking about it now, Kelly (Clint Eastwood) took a lot on faith when he took the German officer's word for fourteen thousand bars of gold stashed away in a French bank. Personally, I would have been a lot more skeptical myself, but that's just me. Not only was Crapgame a pretty good name for Rickles' character, but pretty much described the mission and it's chances of success.Just before my viewing of the film on Turner Classics, moderator Ben Mankiewicz explained how the production was filmed in (then) Yugoslavia because the country maintained so much of it's military hardware left over from WWII. So at least there's that element of authenticity to complement the story's action sequences. Not sure about the title though; I realize it was Eastwood's Kelly who came up with the scheme, but he was subordinate to Big Joe (Telly Savalas) rank wise. To my mind, Savalas might have had even more screen time than the top billed star, causing me to think that this might have been better served up as 'Telly's Heroes'.