The Road To Dunkirk: Kelly's Heroes
- Jul 15, 2017
- 2 min read
On July 20th Christopher Nolan's WW2 Thriller, Dunkirk, lands in cinemas. To prepare yourselves, and myself, for what will likely be a wholly memorable war film, each day until release I'll be reviewing some of my favourite WW2 films. Up next, Clint Eastwood's own WW2 adventure comedy, Kelly's Heroes.
When Kelly (Clint Eastwood) learns of the existence of a large amount of Nazi gold being held in a small French bank, he knows there's only one thing to do. Gather a crew of misfits and lay-abouts, including Big Joe (Telly Slavas), Crapgame (Don Rickles) and Oddball (Donald Sutherland) and go on an AWOL road trip, trying to stay ahead of their own forces and out of the way of the enemy. But as they say, everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
Kelly's Heroes is one of the lighter war films around. Between its colourful cast of characters, ridiculous scenarios and excellent writing, it's nothing short of entertaining. Much like The Dirty Dozen, Sutherland steals the show, this time portraying a tank driver by way of hippy, more interested in making his sherman look nice than he is in fighting the war.
But Kelly's Heroes is still a war movie and this means it has its share of action. Between a darkly humorous land mine sequence, a showdown with a tiger tank and numerous smaller shootouts, the writing is punctuated by solid action, as is to be expected from an Eastwood led film.
While Kelly's Heroes isn't the greatest movie ever made, it is a lot of fun. The characters are great, there are some excellent moments and the end is one of the best around. If you like the first half of The Dirty Dozen and are after something similar, Kelly's Heroes is for you.
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