The old Hollywood Westerns revelled in star-studded casts and lots of attitude and action. It's only appropriate, then, that many of the character actors in the Dirty Dozen first cut their teeth on that genre, because in a strange way it tends to play like a modern day spaghetti movie. Veteran director Robert Aldrich, infamous for his long string of Westerns, creates a memorable action movie, with a group of characters you'd never want to invite to dinner, but you'd probably want to have on your side if you?re thinking of enlisting.
The movie plays for almost two and a half hours, but the plot is very simple. A motley gang of twelve criminals faces the stiffest of penalties at its opening. They're individually selected by the U.S. Army to infiltrate a German installation near the end of the Second World War. It's up to gruff Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin) to whip them into shape and inevitably the dozen attempt to succeed in what is clearly a lop-sided mission from the get-go.
As Reisman, Marvin's character is fascinating because he has no support in any direction. He has to prove himself to his superiors (including Major General Worden, here a miscast Ernest Borgnine). He also has to prove himself to the criminals; his early scenes where he uses some creative forms of reverse psychology on them are gripping. Finally, he still has to prove something to himself, having created just as many blemishes on his military career as victories. His partnership with the dozen as the movie progresses eventually evolves from mandatory to voluntary, and it is a quite believable change.
There are several great performances, include Telly Savalas as the pathologically disturbed Maggott, Charles Bronson as the brooding Wladislaw, Jim Brown as the stoic Jefferson, and Donald Sutherland as the dimwitted Pinkley. These characters are never really intended to be noble, yet by the film's conclusion one can at least see that every person, no matter how vile or corrupt, can indeed serve some purpose. Is it right to knowingly send condemned men on a suicide mission in the name of war? Since the film prefers to focus on the action elements rather than the philosophical ones, I think a better question might be, how much more civil are the leaders who declare war compared to those who are forced to fight in the trenches?
There are some great scenes in the Dirty Dozen, most notably at the end when every detail of their elaborate plan has been thoroughly memorized but suddenly gets derailed by the unpredictability of one of the soldiers. The most glaring sequence that seems out of place is when Reisman wants to cut the dozen a break and first provides them drinks and relaxation, but then inexplicably pays a truck full of prostitutes to console these convicted rapists and killers. The scene becomes even more unbelievable when Reisman orders his men to leave the dozen alone and unguarded with the women. I find it hard to believe that could ever really happen.
A little while back, I came down a bit hard on the Shawshank Redemption for sugar-coating the plights of the convicts. The Dirty Dozen wants to tell the tale of a bunch of men who know they have no future, yet still decide to fight for other people's futures. They know the score, they are as hardened and as grizzled as a bunch of outlaws, and they go down shooting, much like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
