The Dirty Dozen

Robert Aldrich's anti-everything-except-explosives war movie, presented as an all-star game. The film follows nonconformist Major Reisman (Lee Marvin) in his assigned task of assembling a suicide squad of military felons (murderers, rapists, thieves) to infiltrate and destroy a chateau in occupied France at which the Nazi top brass congregate during WWII. Since the cast is presented as bad guys without stories, it's impossible to get emotionally involved. Aided by his assistant, Jaeckel, Marvin recruits 12 men: Cassavetes, Savalas, Bronson, Sutherland, Brown, Walker, Lopez, Mancini, Cooper, Carruthers, Busby, and Maitland, ranging from the merely dim-witted to the ...