"Inglorious Bastards" Review

- Inglorious Bastards (1978) -

This underground hit, at one time marketed as a Fred Williamson blaxploitation flick called "G.I. Bro," is like snorting "The Goonies" while shooting up the "A-Team." between your toes. It's about a group of American war criminals in occupied France during World War II. They are condemned by the U.S. military, but thanks to some unintentional German help manage to escape from an Allied prison camp. They find themselves hiding from U.S. troops now that they're AWOL and ducking from the Nazis. Through a series of scripted events (it's a movie) they manage to redeem themselves by taking part in a super secret mission to destroy a Nazi train.

"Inglorious Bastards" is a lot of fun. Director, Enzo Castellari shoots this movie like a traditional spaghetti war film, but still manages to get some grittiness on the screen. There is a little bit of cheese in the movie. They do break into a Nazi fortress using a slingshot, but after watching some of the documentary stuff, it turns out they weren't allowed to use guns during production due to laws in Italy at the time of shooting. So Enzo improvised and made it seem like "Screw it, these guys are so bad-ass... they don't need guns!" (not an actual quote)
Fred Williamson is awesome as usual. And Bo Svenson seems like his great smart-ass self. The supporting cast is also solid, especially the Itallian "Bastard" who brings a lot of hillarious energy. The flick, in general, is reminiscent of "The Dirty Dozen." Except as the tag line put it, "What ever the Dirty Dozen did, they do it dirtier!"