This keen little B movie must have packed quite a punch back in the early 60s, but in the wake of the likes of Saving Private Ryan it looks a lot tamer than it must have done back then. An intense and moody Steve McQueen (both on and off screen, apparently) is Reese, a maverick soldier assigned to a small group of soldiers landed with the unenviable task of defending a hill against a platoon (or troop or squad or battalion – more than the 6 men the Yanks had, anyway) of Germans during WWII. The soldiers employ a number of 'Home Alone' style tactics in order to fool Jerry into believing they number in the hundreds before finally mounting an attack on a seemingly impenetrable pill box, the residents of which are systematically gunning our heroes down.
Hell is for Heroes follows many of the genre stereotypes, a fact which weakens its overall impact simply because it's all a bit too familiar. You have the surly loner (McQueen), the wily gopher (Bobby Darin), the stoic leader (Fess Parker), the ever-so-slightly remote but highly intelligent soldier (James Coburn), the enthusiastic partisan (Nick Adams) etc. These all interact in pretty much the way you'd expect, and because the story has to find room for two comic characters (Darin and stand-up comic Bob Newhart as a nervous typist who strays into the battle arena) the film has a fairly uneven tone. This ensemble approach means the character of Reese - ostensibly the lead - is too often sidelined so that others get their moment on screen, and we learn little about him other than the fact that he's a moody bugger.
Having said that, the film contains some undeniably powerful moments. Not only the climactic scene, an accident of financial shortcomings which has subsequently earned the film an apparent cult status, but also the death scene of Private Kolinsky (Mike Kellin), filmed from above and screaming with a terrifying intensity while claustrophobically surrounded by his comrades as he's stretchered to safety. It's concise, anti-war scenes like these – and not the misguided comic moments – that give the film its impact and give it the right to lay some claim to the status it has received.
Hell is for Heroes follows many of the genre stereotypes, a fact which weakens its overall impact simply because it's all a bit too familiar. You have the surly loner (McQueen), the wily gopher (Bobby Darin), the stoic leader (Fess Parker), the ever-so-slightly remote but highly intelligent soldier (James Coburn), the enthusiastic partisan (Nick Adams) etc. These all interact in pretty much the way you'd expect, and because the story has to find room for two comic characters (Darin and stand-up comic Bob Newhart as a nervous typist who strays into the battle arena) the film has a fairly uneven tone. This ensemble approach means the character of Reese - ostensibly the lead - is too often sidelined so that others get their moment on screen, and we learn little about him other than the fact that he's a moody bugger.
Having said that, the film contains some undeniably powerful moments. Not only the climactic scene, an accident of financial shortcomings which has subsequently earned the film an apparent cult status, but also the death scene of Private Kolinsky (Mike Kellin), filmed from above and screaming with a terrifying intensity while claustrophobically surrounded by his comrades as he's stretchered to safety. It's concise, anti-war scenes like these – and not the misguided comic moments – that give the film its impact and give it the right to lay some claim to the status it has received.