Watch The Misfit Brigade For Free

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

the audience applauded

As Good As It Gets

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Entertaining but average WWII film with lots of humor , battles , explosions , tongue-in-cheek action and sheer amusement ; being really a takeoff on ¨Dirty Dozen¨ style . Spectacular War film with a touch of irreverence about a reckless group of German soldiers , 27th Panzers , Hitler's heavy-duty combat regiment . As a group of inmates find themselves recruited into the military undertaking a dangerous mission behind enemy lines , as they sneak on Russian territory to get blowing-up a train . Exciting film with a truly silly formula about a misfit team led by Capt. Erich (D.W. Moffett) who carries out a suicide mission behind enemy lines . Captain Erich and Cpl. Joseph Porta (Bruce Davison) and their buddies are assorted criminals from a Nazi penal bunch . An equipment of two-fisted soldiers formed by a misfit band with egoistic aims are drafted to go on a near-suicide mission and attempt to explode some installation , on a zone occupied by the Soviets . As they are offered their freedom if they carry out a risked assignment : to destroy a train and subsequently survive . This strange , motley platoon is formed by hustler , anachronistic , lame-brained , and oddball characters ; the team and their tanks Panzer will take on tanks T 34 . ¨The misfit brigade¨ is an entertaining as well as amusing film with the ordinary squad of renegade soldiers of World War II . In the hands of hardboiled director Gordon Hessler and a tough-as-leather cast , that's all the plot that's needed to make one rip-roaring wartime flick . The mission is two-fold and in violent and cynical style : the selfish and mean group undergoing across a dangerous territory and executing hazardous feats , they then turn loose on Russsian territory where cause destruction . The first half of the film allows the colorful cast of character actors to have their fun as they get their tails whipped into shape and develop shaky relationship among them . The final part is all action, as the brave commando wreak havoc and then run for their lives . Despite the fact that most part of the "heroes" survive the bloodbath , the message here isn't that war is hell . Rather, it seems to be : war can be a hell of a good time... if you've got nothing to lose . This is a rugged WWII actioner concerning a squadron of dispensable characters with no past and no future and other rare roles . The dangerous mission includes a selected group formed by a motley and varied but disreputable squadron played by notorious secondaries playing Privates who are an oddball , rag-tag and undisciplined gang . Bruce Davison as Cpl. Joseph assumes the character of commando leader in this regular wartime movie , being professional though middlingly directed by Gordon Hessler . This clichéd ¨Kelly's heroes¨, ¨Dirty Dozen¨ variation packs frantic thrills , lots of familiar faces , perilous adventures , lighthearted comedy , relentless feats , and buck-loads of explosive action . The noisy action is uniformly well-made, especially deserving of mention the rip-roaring scenes on the tanks battles , including some spectacular shootouts . Apart from the values of team spirit , cudgeled by D.W. Moffett into his rebel group , the film is full of feats , humor with tongue-in-check and thrills . Bruce Davison is good as leader of the motley pack together thwart the enemy schemes , as well as the largely secondary cast who has a lot a fun as David Patrick Kelly , Jay O Sanders , and cameos by Oliver Reed , David Carradine . The film is based on Danish writer Sven Hassle's 1979 war novel Wheels of Terror. In fact , it is Sven Hassle's second book, and takes more of a fictional slant over his first one . Hassle said the following : ¨ My books -and this Misfit brigade- are strictly anti-military. They correspond to my personal view of what I experienced. I write to warn the youth of today against war. I am writing the story of the small soldiers, the men who neither plan nor cause wars but have to fight them . War is the last arm of bad politicians¨ . Other works Sven wrote are : Novel "Legion of the Damned¨, ¨Comrades of War¨, ¨March Battalion¨ , ¨Assignment Gestapo¨, "Monte Cassino", ¨Liquidate Paris¨, among others . Atmospheric and functional musical score as well as evocative cinematography . This is a wartime typical vehicle and into the ¨warlike commando genre¨ , in USA style which also belong the American classics from the 60s as : ¨Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich) , ¨The Kelly's heroes¨ (Brian G.Hutton) , ¨ Where eagles dare¨ (Brian G. Hutton) , ¨Tobruk¨ (Arthur Hiller), ¨Devil's Brigade¨ (Andrew V McLagen) and many others . The motion picture was ordinarily handled and professionally directed by Gordon Hessler, and achieved limited success and cash . His first feature film as a director was Catacombs (1965) . When production of the AIP Edgar Allan Poe series was shifted to Britain, Hessler collaborated with producer Louis Heyward and horror enthusiast/ screenwriter Christopher Wicking on three Poe films and on the sci-fi shocker : Scream and scream again , The oblong box and Murders in the Rue Morgue . Carrying on in the fantasy field, he also directed the Ray Harryhausen stop-motion swashbuckler Golden voyage of Sinbad (1973) and additional small-screen suspense : Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973) with Bette Davis . Of course , this ¨The misfit brigade ¨ in which added humor to the warlike action.

In spite of the goofs and cheesiness I really enjoy this movie. Had it been made today with young b actors it would be a disaster. The 80's tone and the great actors of this movie is hilarious. The story is simple but it gets you going through the movie with a few laughs and hilarious moments, like when Oliver Reed makes an entrance as German general. The goofs are also fun, Soviet made SU-100's makes a stand-in for tank destroyers as Jagdpanzer IV's, Hetzers or StuG's (or German captured SU-100's) It's filmed in former Yugoslavia, and many actors are Yugoslavians, which is good and contributes to the realism. One fun trivia if you like Cross of Iron (1977), the actor Slavco Stimac who plays Sven also plays the little blonde boy Michail in Cross Of Iron. He have had a real career since then.Sven Hassels books are a good read if you find them. They sorta continue with some of the characters and their achievements and defeats in WWIIWatch it, it's even available on Bluray with 1080p and DD Surround only but it stills is an upgrade over DVD.

Yes, for the intended group of viewers, this apparently hits the mark, according to the reviewer of a respectable paper here. I didn't have to look for that; they put it on the cover. Another piece of evidence for how desperate they were to find *something* positive and inciting to put on there is the fact that they make mention of Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide giving it no less than two stars... you know, out of four. Is that supposed to be high praise? What, are they just proud that he noticed its existence at all? I get the impression that the following facts are not widely known in the rest of the world, and want to set the record straight. Sven Hassle is a fraud. He almost definitely never experienced battle, he talked to a bunch of people who had. It is probable that his wife authored the books(I haven't read a word of them, but what I hear is that they're pure war pornography), he dictated them to her. A Nazi, he worked for the Germans during the war, and then turned in his buddies in hopes of reducing his sentence once they lost. Whether or not it worked, he still got(though did not serve all) 10 years; in comparison, those who had worked as soldiers for the Germans got between two and four years, or only one. The allegations are confidential, so we don't know what he did; however, it can't have been all that small. This does match the tone of the novels, as far as I understand. The wise-guy attitude, as well. This comes dangerously close to throwing out all credibility and tension right at the beginning, and then proceeds to do so not much later, and then, in case anyone was still caring about anything that happens in this, it goes even further. Are we meant to accept whatever this deems fit to toss at us? What, because WW2 happened? This does not treats it with enough respect for that to be sufficient on its own. There is next to no sense of danger, the characters get off too easily. This has entirely too many goofy and silly instances, and it gets to be embarrassing. It makes the rest of the film tough to take seriously; I mean, it's farcical at times. We're talking cringe-inducing. Gone is the majority of the impact of the couple of powerful, emotional moments(also on account of them being immediately preceded or concluded by "comic relief" that isn't funny), what there is of authenticity, realism and richness in detail. You get an idea of how minuscule the charges had to be to get imprisoned... well, they seem fine. They get bad food in small portions! Don't worry, no one has a single line where they complain about it. Penal corps! Safe. Collective punishment! A punch-line. All that has any effect is the kid and the catch-22 of sorts/test. The tank action is reasonable. This has good pacing here and there. And it is impressive that the Hollywood aspect is not what ruins this(which is not to say it helps). The cast have a lot of acting chops, it's unfortunate they don't get to show it in this. There is a lot of disturbing content, a bit of violence, some strong language and a little nudity and sexuality in this. I recommend this to fans of the written originals, I guess. 5/10

Svel Hassle has written a lot of books about his war experiences as a Dane in the German Army in WWII. Most of these fictional accounts but based on real-life events), the books have been widely released in Europe, but from time to time are available in North America as well (Corgi Press).This is the one and only movie made from one of his books, a shame really, since Swen Hassle portrays way in a most realistic manner; neither making light of what is happening, not glorifying war, but emphasizing the "Kameradschaft" - the effects of the war's events on Swen and his friends.The movie unfortunately has some flaws that keep it from being really great. Foremost of these is the casting of David Carradine as a German officer. Too bad, since his performance in this film is sub-par at best.The casting of Bruce Davison as Porta is a great choice, and he really shines in this movie, and along with David Patrick Kelly (as "The Legionnaire") gives realistic performances.One of the major reasons this movie didn't receive wider distribution was protests from a number of groups who thought the movie - although they probably had not seen it - glorified the Nazi regime. It doesn't - it portrays war as brutal (on all sides), with no leaders to rely on, rather only one's fellow soldiers to depend on for your life.A side-note - Swen Hassle is still alive (at this writing) and until relatively recently, has still been writing (although not writing fiction any more). Two of the three major characters in his books (Tiny, Porta and the Legionnaire) survived the war as well.