War Pigs

Let's face it - this movie is terrible. Crappy post production battle effects, terrible dialogue and clichéd characters. The pace is pretty slow and the story is obvious. Also I hadn't realized how messed up Mickey Rourke's face has gotten.

But this movie is fully aware of what it is.

Dolph Lundgren with a French accent? Hilarious. Even he finds it funny in his acting.

If you put aside your armchair IMDb film critic career and suspend your disbelief - this is not that bad a watch - along the lines of Dirty Dozen, or even Inglorious Basterds (okay it's no Tarantino movie but hey, in spirit) I actually enjoyed the movie as it went on. Also aside from some of the post production battle elements, they do a good job of using language, uniforms and some WWII era vehicles to lend a superficial air of authenticity.

But hey, don't listen to me or anyone else - watch it for yourself. Dolph speaking with a French accent is worth it alone.

Its not slightly shaky, its abusively shaky. Extreme close ups are gratuitous and leave the viewer without a sense of whats going on in the scene. The dialog was one dimensional. Bottom line, it tried way too hard to be cool and comes across as amateur and insulting to history and the viewer. I couldn't finish the film, so I can't speak for how it ends. But watching it was painful and nauseating. Its a real shame because I've been looking forward to its release for a while. I really wanted to like this movie. But at the end of the day, its produced so poorly that its rendered unwatchable. When producers realize that movies are about telling a story, in this case history, instead of trying to be cool, they'll stop getting overall failing grades at IMDb. Investors are throwing away their money.

Of all the people who worked on "War Pigs" in front of or behind the camera, only Dolph Lundgren survives more or less intact. His character was written with a few interesting quirks, and Lundgren does put in some effort in his performance. The rest of the cast and characters have nothing special about them to report (Mickey Rourke only has three brief scenes, for one thing.) The drab characters and performances are just part of the reason why this movie is surprisingly dull. The first half of the movie (mostly to do with training the title squad) has almost no action. And the training is nothing special, just routines you've seen in other special mission movies before, with not even any comic relief to stir things up (at least, comic relief that's funny.) Once the movie moves to the actual mission, things aren't that much better. The movie is still slow moving and boring, even when they throw in some token action (which always ends not long after it begins.) I've seen documentaries that had much more life than what's found in this movie.

This must rank as one of the worst researched and acted war movies of recent years. US soldiers disheveled and unkempt, dirty dozen-like, an absolutely absurd scenario and on top of it all, no research as to uniforms and army traditions. Foreign Legion officers never wear or wore the kepi blanc and the character of the tooth-pick chewing long-haired US "colonel" complete with his cowboy hat is absolutely ridiculous. The acting is terrible throughout and full of boring stereotypes. One wonders if this is meant to be a war movie or a B-movie parody. 1 out of then 10 is too good for this disaster of a movie!

A Dirty Dozen kind of story. Some heroics, happy ending. I would have loved this film when I was ten years old. For a war film, it's about average.