Hell Is for Heroes

Very underrated film, excellent action, realistic, with frantic battles and lulls where we get to see the various personalities of the excellent cast. McQueen is a hard nosed bitter Sarge - tough, would kill you as soon as look at you. Great comic touches too, a fine Siegel film. War drama at its best.

Black and white film is most effective. Like the film Battleground only not in the winter. There is good dialogue with the GI's - Bob Newhart is real funny.

Very violent, with nice action sequences - almost too intense. Do not see an edited version. See the real thing.

This Don Siegel directed film is a very simple war film--similar to Sam Fuller's STEEL HELMET. Both films involve a very small group of American soldiers who are holding out against a larger enemy force and as a result, it's a very tense and claustrophobic film. Unlike STEEL HELMET, this is set in WWII and has a lot of stars and soon-to-be stars, such as Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Bobby Darin, Bob Newhart and Harry Guardino--though at the time, none of them were "big" stars.

A group of only six guys are given the task of filling in where a hundred soldiers had been the day before. The problem is that the Germans are just across the battlefield and the Americans have to try and convince the enemy that there are a lot more than just the six guys. So, they use a variety of ruses to try to keep the Germans at bay--ultimately culminating in an insane attack against a heavily defended pillbox. When this fails, the rather surly and antisocial McQueen decides to try it again....and practically alone.

Overall, it's an incredibly tense film and one with a lot of realism--perhaps too much for some (my wife got pretty upset during one of the bloodier scenes). The acting and direction are very good--in particular, Steve McQueen did an excellent job following the first abortive attack--showing a lot of the effects of exhaustion and fear. However, the whole "court martial" scene following this was a bit silly--it seemed excessive and hard to believe for the Commanding Officer to respond to this brave action this way--or at least it seemed this way to me. Also, the film, towards the end tended to use too much stock footage--a bit of a minus in an otherwise good film. But at least it did end on a very tough and tense note--a definite plus.

In 1944, in France, Pvt. John Reese (Steve McQueen) is assigned for a platoon close to the front. He is a very experienced, but also rebel and neurotic soldier, who lost his ranked position due to his behavior, questioning orders and authority. His platoon joins other army companies in the front, and they are left in only six men to hold up their position against a great quantity of Germans soldiers for a couple of days. They use their experience and many tricks to cheat the enemy, pretending they are in a larger number. This black and white movie of war is a very tense, claustrophobic and full of action. Steve McQueen has an excellent performance, as usual, as well as the rest of the cast and direction. This film is highly indicated for fans of action movie of war. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): `O Inferno é Para Heróis' (`The Hell is for Heroes')

This World War II film is one of the finest I have seen. It features an allstar cast, great direction, a great script and compelling performances.

Steve McQueen plays an American soldiers who thrives on combat. He gets busted from squad leader to Private when he crashes a jeep. His squad gets sent to the front lines, where he clashes with by-the-book Sergeant Larkin (Harry Guardino). Problems are made worse when the Company pulls out, leaving Larkin's squad to cover a huge section of the front lines. In order to succeed, they trick the Germans in various ways to make them think they're a much larger unit.

The film features a powerful central performance by Steve McQueen. While his lines are short and to the point, his facial expressions and movements are just as important. He makes a very convincing front-line soldier, doing a lot of things many other front-line-combat themed war movies of the time (TO HELL AND BACK, etc) leave out.

Supporting McQueen are Bobby Darin, James Coburn, and Mike Kellin all very young. Their characters were unique at the time but may seem a bit chliched and two-dimensional if you've seen a lot of war pictures.

Also lending a hand if Bob Newhart as a bumbling typist who ends up getting commandeered to help hold the front line position. His telephone monlogue scene is a classic and he makes a very believable scared-stiff REMF, just like Jeremy Davies as Cpl. Upham in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.

The battle scenes were obviously filmed on a tight budget but are very authentic appearing. They involve soldiers bleeding profusely and screaming in agony -- not something you see in older war films.

All in all, a very well done, realistic and very believable war film. It was apparently based on a true incident.

The DVD is of high quality. It is finally in letterbox format, about a 1.78:1 ratio. The video quality is superb. The sound is mono but very good mono; quite rich. Also included is a widescreen but scratchy and grainy trailer.

I enjoy and admire HELL IS FOR HEROES so much that I am using it as a model for my own WWII home video, BATTLEGROUND.

This n The Blob were among the first few films of McQueen which i saw during school days n i became a fan of him.

I saw his The Magnificent Seven n others after these two movies.

Revisited it recently on a dvd which I own.

The future king of cool played an angry, morose, detached loner in this flick.

The movie has Bob Newhart in his very first movie role.

Its a very good World War film, not quite in the league of Platoon, Apocalypse Now or Thin Red Line.

But fans of the genre, the director and/or McQueen should definitely check this one out.

I am fascinated by World War II, but i think a lot of 1950s and 60s WWII movies are too cheesy to be believed except a few n Hell is for Heroes is a solid one.

A wounded Reese (McQueen) blowing up enemies' fortification n its occupants and himself is riveting.

This climactic scene is shamelessly copied by a Bollywood war movie Border 1998, during the climax the character of Akshay Khanna copies McQueen's way of blowing up himself n the enemies.