What makes this movie difficult to watch as early as Bruce's initial appearance 5 or 10 minutes in is his fashionable razor stubble. It would have been unheard of for any back area officer, especially a command officer to wear a 3 day beard. That there tends to cast doubt on the veracity of the rest of the movie that so far appears to be large on computer air war imagery and short on much of anything else. I imagine if I watch it long enough I might pilots anachronistically shouting "roger that."
Reviews
8 Reviews
The Mannix that wasn't there
19 November 2020
I've been binge watching Mannix for the last 3 months beginning with season 1 up to this disaster of a story. My first impulse, as with one of the other reviewers, was that this was a discarded Mission Impossible script, as it clearly resembles no Mannix episode to date and has all the hallmarks of a MI episode right down to the doofus banana republic soldiers who can't fight their way out of a paper bag and phony street scenes in a fictitious country that appears to be totally Americanized right down to American cars lining the streets, but then I looked at the writer's IMDB credits and discovered he never wrote for MI. So that is a mystery. With respect to Mannix, he could have easily stayed home and they could have used a guest protagonist in the same way the used other actors to do the remaining Perry Mason movies after Raymond Burr died. It seemed to work okay. But more importantly, notwithstanding being handed a louse script Mike Connors seemed to take advantage instead of trying to make the best of a rotten situation. In the scene of him in the front seat of the airplane waiting for the pilot to start the stalling engine he showed no tension, no suspense even though he knew the soldiers with machine guns were hot on their tail. He just seem to be not there or at best just starring into space, which gave us an opportunity to see how much he's aged by the 7 season. The rest of the Part 1 goes down hill from there. And John Colicos just like Anthony Zerbe (two very exacting actors) in every thing I've ever seen them both in was not at all convincing and it was if he was calling in his part. Sadly, I did not stick around for Part 2, sad because the episodes are now dwindling down and I feel cheated, but nonetheless moved on to the next episode after Part 2.
Allies
(2014)
Just how stupid are today's film makers?
15 June 2015
Allies begins with a good premise, the rivalry between the Yanks and the Brits. On a personal level, having written a book called Zepka's War, parts of which take place in the hedgerows of France, I enjoyed watching the Germans get mowed down in what could have been some of those same hedgerows. But back to the movie. It's understandable that we will likely never see authentic WWII tanks in war movies these days, and that the uniforms will be questionable as to authenticity, but what I will never get used to, and for which there is no excuse, the need for injecting current terms such as "are we good?" are we good to go?" and "Roger that," into WWII films being made today. Are producers and directors really that stupid?
Fatal Honeymoon
(2012 TV Movie)
Harvey Keitel?
25 January 2015
Okay. We all agree it was a tragic story. But only tragic enough to be made into a low budget made for TV movie. And that brings me to my point. This movie shows how you can take a superb and versatile actor as Harvey Keitel, drop him into a low budget movie with a low budget director and absolutely no interesting supporting cast, and he sucks just as if he were one of them. Did Harvey need a quick cash infusion? I know he didn't exactly call in his part. But he nevertheless came off as pathetic. Had the producers chosen to cast an equally unknown and mediocre actor for the father instead of disrupting the story with an A lister subjected to a bad script the story would have been easier take.
Ardennes Fury
(2014)
Combat Lite
19 January 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Everyone has pretty much nailed this idiocy of this movie that just happens to come along at the same time Fury is released, which was at least a plausible story that remained as true as possible to tank warfare in WWII Europe. But the only thing I will say about Ardennes Fury that I'm not sure has been said, is, they did not measure distance in klics during WWII. That didn't come until Vietnam. Nor did they say good to go. That came last week. And finally, I don't think tankers would be sitting on top of their tanks behind enemy lines in broad daylight playing cards, while they wait for their comrads to return from a deadly mission. Other than that it was a great movie. Oh, one more thing . . . I don't think a Catholic nun and that th ditsey mother would have been wearing scultured finger nails. The story could have been something seen in an episode of Combat with Claudine Longet playing the babe, as that week's gust star.
The California Kid
(1974 TV Movie)
What became of Sgt. Saunders
1 February 2013
Did honorable Sgt Saunders go home after the war and run for sheriff of a small California town? Somehow this made for TV movie from 1974 eluded me. See pre-liberal panty-waiste Martin Sheen in a James Deanesk role avenging the murder of his motorist brother take on an anything but honorable Vic Morrow playing a sleazy and corrupt town sheriff who hates speedsters and will do anything it takes to run them off the road with the front bumper of his '57 Plymouth. This jewel which takes place in 1957 but filmed in 1974 is filled with goofs and anachronisms galor and solid acting by the above as well as Nick Nolte and former Mama Phillips taking up time and space as the local coffee shop waitress and Rockford Files alum, Stewart Margolin playing it straight as Morrow's lacki deputy.
Combat jumps the shark on this one
11 January 2013
As if there hadn't been enough implausible story lines by 1967, now Saunders is administered mind altering pain killers when he's wounded (for a change) and taken prisoner to a German field hospital.Then he manages to escape (of course) by hi-jacking a kraut motorcycle (of course) while the hospital comes under heavy American shelling. Speeding along wearing a captured German uniform during a barrage of heavy American shell fire through a wooded area bouncing over shell craters and managing to evade Germans on the run, Saunders is higher than the guy who must have written this cheesy script...laughing in a drug induced craze worthy of Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in Easy Rider or otherwise trying to be trendy during the Sgt Pepper drugged out times that Combat was now finding itself in during its last season.
Setting the tone
8 January 2013
Warning: Spoilers
I've been reacquainting myself with the series, not having watched seriously since its first run when I was 10. Combat has been in my conscious DNA since then and now thanks to YouTube I find myself trying to cram all 150 episodes in but not in any particular order. Rear Echelon Commandos gets off to a slow start but it was only the second episode in the series so I imagine they were still in the early stages of creating one of many different formulaic formats that would become immediately recognizable and predictable but still extremely gripping in later episodes. Formula 1...introduction of the hapless and seemingly cowardice and self absorbed replacements fresh in from the repo depo that eventually go on to do Saunders or Hanly proud regardless if they survive or not. Lets hear it for Bobby Rydel, Tommy Sands and Franki Avalon in later episodes.
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