The Misfit Brigade

An ill-advised adaptation of one of Sven Hassle's WW2 Eastern Front novels, WHEELS OF TERROR is a film that it's quite difficult to enjoy. Hassle's books were always grimly realistic and downbeat, and despite attempts to emulate that style, WHEELS OF TERROR feels cheesy and quite sentimental by comparison. What's obvious here is that the budget was quite low, meaning that the various action scenes are only averagely handled, and at times look more like they belong in a '60s Italian war film than a 1980s movie. I do like the work of director Gordon Hessler (THE OBLONG BOX, SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN, etc.) but this is one of his lesser efforts.

The cast is a mixed bag of familiar faces. Some stand out, others are bland. Bruce Davison headlines things but was quite wooden, I thought, although the ever-snide David Patrick Kelly (COMMANDO) is better as the volatile one. The all-American David Carradine is an odd choice to play the German officer, but it works quite well, and it's hard not to enjoy Oliver Reed's cameo as the pompous general. Overall, though, I found WHEELS OF TERROR to be quite a shoddy film, and not really something I can recommend, which is a surprise given that screenwriter Nelson Gidding previously wrote the scripts for classics like THE HAUNTING and THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN.