First off let me say if you haven't seen this movie its best not to bother with the 1980 theatrical release which even thou is superior to 90% of all the war movies out there is none the less a truncated version of what the director Samuel Fuller had planned to put on screen. We can blame studio interference for that. Instead look for "The Reconstruction" version released a year or 2 ago which restored around 50 minutes of footage and gave us the film Fuller had always planned. And what a stunning movie it was to.

Its not a big budget or crazy exciting action scenes, (indeed the Normandy landings section looks like it would struggle to come up with 50 extras) that makes this movie so special. Instead its the feeling of pure authenticity coursing thru every scene from the sad resigned expression of Lee Marvin playing a character who's fought thru 2 world wars and knowS the de-humanizing effect it has all the way thru to the raw recruits he commands from Africa to Sicily on to Normandy before ending in the heart of Germany itself. Its not a preachy film, it doesn't shove things into your face and scream war is bad, instead its a simple journey that doesn't expect anything from you respecting the viewers ability to think for themselves. There are so many moments in this movie that i would consider cinematic perfection. The interlude in the Sicilian village, the raid on the mental assylm which is beautifully surreal all the way to the ending in the concentration camp.

I have no hesitation in saying this is the best pure war movie ever made and its hard to see how its understated brilliance could ever be surpassed. If you haven't seen it then there is a serious hole missing from your war movie watch list.

A+