Customer Reviews

Misfit Brigade, The - (aka "Wheels of Terror") [VHS]

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When you consider the source material, this adaptation from Sven Hassel's bestseller Wheels Of Terror (one of a series of more than 10 books) about a German Penal Regiment fighting their way through battle after battle on the Russian front, should have been better than it is. Instead of making a gritty war movie with amusing moments in the style of the book, they've turned it into a caper movie trying to get cheap laughs with little substance. The music is straight out of a "Carry-On..." film, and the comedy elements really don't work at all. The C grade cast just about manage to get from A to B in the script without giving any real meat to their characters, and the whole thing goes off like a damp squib. Which is a shame when you think this could have been a late 80's Cross Of Iron instead of the second rate Kelly's Heroes that it turned out. It's hard to believe this film was made *after* Platoon had revised the way war movies are made. The Misfit Brigade is like a throwback to the less-than-serious war movies of the 60's - no bad thing if it's done well, but it's not.
Oliver Reed and David Carradine only appear for a combined screen time of about 5 minutes, so having them at the head of the cast list is stretching things a bit. One bizarre factoid though is that the kid that played the young Russian soldier in Peckinpah's vastly superior Cross Of Iron is all grown up and cast as Sven Hassel, the author, here, although he's reduced to a mere face in the crowd with little or nothing to do for nearly the entire feature.

That's not to say the film's a waste of time. I didn't find it at all funny (although the slapstick score was obviously telling me where and when I should be laughing) but maybe I felt let down by the fact that I was expecting something a little different to what I got. It's certainly not a bad film, it's about 20 years too late for the niche market it was aiming for and as such it'll probably rot on video for the rest of its days.

Don't do what I did and expect a reasonable adaptation of a great rollercoaster ride of a book, if you do you'll be disappointed. It has its moments, but turning a blind eye to Germans fighting WW2 using East European post-1960 tanks is a bit harder to do when the film doesn't give you much in return. It's more of a curio than anything else. If you want to see the Germans at war watch Das Boot, Cross Of Iron, or All Quiet On The Western Front. If you want to see an old fashioned style WW2-set caper movie in the style of Kelly's Heroes or The Dirty Dozen (but nowhere near as good) then The Misfit Brigade might be what you're looking for. At least it's better than the TV movie sequels they made for The Dirty Dozen.

in the version I received,although the movie soundtrack is in English, when you first put in the dvd it gives you a choice of which of the scandinavian languages you want the sub-titles to be in. At no point then or later is there an option for having no sub-titles. Also they are in thick white letters, and are very obtrusive.

Even though the film falls short of the book and it was made on a limited budget(reason for which I gave it only 3 stars) it was still entertaining. I wish some big studios would bring to life all the other books written by Sven Hassel.Adventure,action,carnage,war and humour would all interact in these movies if only someone would invest time and money...but since the Danish hold all the rights for making movies based on Sven's books...there's not much chance of seeing them on the screen and in the style that only the Yanks could produce.
The movie is about a group of german soldiers who hate nazis that are sent behind enemy lines to blow up a strategical railway/depot,more or less it is a one way ticket.

A brief history from the book publishers:-

"'Legion of the Damned' was the first of 14 novels written by Sven Hassel, a Danish volunteer who served in the German army throughout World War II. Never before had violence been described in such hideously graphic detail: it was a far cry from British or American war novels. Based on Sven Hassel's own horrific experiences fighting on the Russian Front, "Legion of the Damned" won critical acclaim across Europe and America and was translated into 15 languages. It has now been optioned for a film."

LotD was written whilst Hassel was a prisoner at the end of the war. Started in a Russian camp, it was completed through transfers to American, British and finally Danish prisoner facilities. On release, Hassel - who was wounded eight times during the course of his service - moved to Spain to begin a post-war life, having fought in the French, Italian and Russian theatres. He was born in Fredensborg, Denmark in 1917, signed on in the merchant navy at 14, completed compulsory military service in Denmark in 1936 and then, facing unemployment, enlisted in the Wehrmacht, deserting with the rank of gefreiter (a junior corporal in the US, a lance-corporal in the UK) after the French campaign. Court-martialled, caged and then "pardoned" into a penal regiment for the duration. He was never in the SS, as has been suggested in other reviews.

LotD is the autobiographical account of the horror and madness of war at a personal level, and the first book from the author (originally published 1957). The subsequent novels are fictional stories based on the authors experiences and sights he witnessed (none of which could have been pretty!).

However, the oft-referred film of LotD has never materialised (at least, I can't find it). What we got was The Misfit Brigade, a film adaptation of Wheels of Terror, the first fictional novel. Unfortunately, as with a lot of movie interpretations in that era, it doesn't follow the book particularly closely and the acting is definitely Z-list. The low budget is evidenced by the use of east European actors (at that time a rare practice) and the poor technical accuracy. A production by a director with talent and big screen experience using current SFX techniques and genre standards would doubtless make for a better picture but it's unlikely to happen - but even with the SFX technology available at the time this movie is poor. When this was made we had yet to be spoiled by the opening twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan or The Thin Red Line, or any number of other war films but, nonetheless, this one doesn't really cut it for me.

In short, this movie is okay - definitely not a great watch, but okay. You really need to detach your mind from the book (if you've read it) before watching and pretend it is just another war movie. However, if you are any sort of aficionado of the books, or a purist, give it a miss... For myself, I watched it because I've read all the books and enjoyed them. However, that's an hour-and-a-half of my life I'm never going to get back...

If you haven't read the books, I thoroughly recommend doing so. However, it's definitely best to start with Legion of the Damned - but I'd give this movie a miss if you're going to work through all the novels. It'll spoil it for you if you don't!

The movie is take from Sven Hasels Non-fiction books which have now been proven to all be made up. The story is fiction and should be treated that way. It is humorus, but a dark humor. Many of the actors have gone on to much bigger careers.

It is not inteded to be a serious war movie and should not be taken that way. It is entertaining and makes light of something that was so serious.

It is worth watching just to see what was in Sven Hassels books.

One of the reveiwers here is incorrect; Svel Hassel's novels ARE NOT FICTION. Hassel, a Dane DID fight with the Waffen S.S. on the Eastern front v. the Commies during W.W.II and the cast did a
good job with this ditty.

There are some things inacurrate here, but overall it is a breath of fresh air compared to Steve (One-Talmudic-Kidney) Speilberg's Pvt. Ryan, ANTI-german hate propaganda, with it's excessive gore. It's also nice to see non-NAZI german foot soldiers fighting the REAL manace in WWII - the Communists!

Dave Carradine, who never shys away from taking offbeat roles (actually, any roles!) and Oliver Reed have played in war movies before and are wasted here in degrading stero-NON-ytpical roles
as they UN-reward their troops for combat behind enemy lines.

Relative newcomer David Patrick Kelly (Commando), wimp Bruce Davidson (Spies like Us, played homo roles later) and nobody
hungarian actor Keith Szarbaja, are great and Jay O. Sanders,
Lou Ivon in Oliver Stone's JFK, is superb as the homocidal "Tiny". This movie has been called "The Deutsches Dirty Donzen, and several other lads, lkie 'Freckle' get killed off during the battles. It accurately portrays anti-NAZIs that had to fight for "The Shaky Cpl.", to try to fight for their country. For a book along those lines, look up Leon Degrelle, and/or Bryan Mark Rigg's 'Schicklegrubr's jewish NAZIs'.