Underrated Movies: Quel maledetto treno blindato (1978)

It's no surprise that this movie has been getting quite a lot of attention ever since Tarantino announced a movie that shares the title with this one (more or less). First lets take a look at some of the alternative titles for this movie: Deadly Mission, Counterfeit Commandos, G.I. Bro, Hell's Heroes, The Dirty Bastard, Commando Bastards, The Inglorious Bastards and now this latest version that I got, The REAL Inglorious Bastards. The real has just been added by the company who owns the rights to get a piece of the cake from the hype surrounding Quantin Tarantino's movie. This is made even more obviouis when reading the back-cover, adding Quantin Tarantino as much as possible in the movie description and even going as far as to call the cast Tarantino's favorites and to call this the ORIGINAL version of his latest movie.

I'm a lead farmer, mothafucka!

While this is to be expected, I can't forgive it for this shameless promotion. Especially because this is not the original version of the latter movie, Tarantino borrowed only the title from this movie and based itself on the same movies that this movie is based on, namely The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes. Now that I got this rant out of the way, let's get on with the review.

Year of release: 1971
Director: Enzo G. Castellari
Genre: Action, Adventure, War,
IMDB Page

The Inglorious Bastards is a school example of a so called Macaroni War movie, that's how we call those Italian war movies inspired by those American war movies like The Dirty Dozen. Not just ripping those movies off, but making it even more exciting.
We know that Castellari can make good movies thanks to his The Warriors rip off movie "The Bronx Warriors", so there is little surprise that this movie is enjoyable one as well. This movie would be forgotten and difficult to find hower if not for having Fred Williamson, not only is Williamson 100 percent awesomeness, the director was aware of this and recut the movie to make it only about him cutting out the other scenes. This version was called G.I. Bro and I can only suspect it to be almost as good. The other reason that this movie is easily availible on dvd is of course thanks to as much people as possible trying to cash in on Tarantino's succes with his movie of the same title.

The Dirty Five

Set when WWII was coming to an end, a group of Americans sentenced to military prison find themself free in France when there convoy is bombed. Even-though they decided to go to the Swiss border to escape the war; they end up being mistaken for some American war heroes who came to France to help the resistance after some plot twists. Colonel Buckner realizes this but still decides to hire them to do a mission in return for immunity. The mission consist of stealing a rocket guidance system from a moving train. To make matters worse they have to make sure they won't be arrested by their own countrymen again.

Even-though the story is quite straightforward, there was a plot point or two that was build up greatly and that I did not see coming. The acting is suprisingly good with Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson leading the cast with a lot of likable characters.

Congratulations, they just made your movie awesome.

There is non stop action (the one thing that a movie like this has to get right!). Castellari has made a lot of progress since the bronx warriors, with camera shots and special effects that far succeed anything he has done before this. This movie is pulp of the highest level, but their were some diminishing factors as well.

And the winner for the best "The Scream" impression is ...

First of we get to many forced comedic moments, most of them by Michael Pergolani, who plays an Italian immigrant, who escapes from army prison all the time thanks to some useful tools he has hidden all over. It's those hidden tools that they went to far with, want some salt? Well look inside this fake grenade. What about something to fix our broken car? Look in his left pocket. What about pictures of naked women? He has them taped inside his helmet. Not only is this joke way to forced, it seems like they use it to get out of situations the writer had no idea how to finish.
Another negative point is the fact that our heroes can stand in the open en none of the germans seem to know how to aim. While we can't expect any more from an eurowar movie, it can lessen the suspense a bit.

Make your own damn sandwich.

In Conclusion:
This movie was a fun ride with lots of action and explosions, a good cast, and a story that eventhough not original has some interesting ideas. For fans of Macaroni War movies and just action movie fans in general. But don't watch this wanting a smart war movie.
Score: 8.0

Nobody expected them to start dancing

The dvd:
The dvd I have is a new released version by DFW. The original aspect ratio is 1.85:1, on this dvd however it is 1:78:1. Don't know why this has been changed but the picture quality is clear and crisp without any noticeable print damage. Sound quality is also top notch. The dutch subtitles are without errors and translate both the english and the german spoken parts. On the flip-side though there are no extras on the disk, just the movie. As I said in the beginning of the movie I did not like the shameless connections with Tarantino that this dvd cover makes, and the addition of REAL in the title makes no sense. But no matter what, if you want the dvd, this version is as good as any for sound and picture quality.