Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

robertmaybeth Based on the novel of the same name, this film is one of Peckinpah's best films. The ambition of Peckinpah's efforts are shown by the large scale of the events shown, and you truly get a feel of the story he was trying to tell. But something gets lost in the translation from book to film, and this film is at times too subtle or too overt, with a lot of the subtleties of the characters getting lost in the process. Despite a fine cast, with many first rate actors, the movie aims high but just doesn't quite achieve the scope Peckinpah was going for.And what a cast it is, too. Including James Coburn, James Mason and Maximilian Schell, the chemistry between them proves to be one of the best parts of this movie. Coburn plays Sergeant Steiner, a man too long in the war and too jaded to be false in any way. His superior Captain Stransky (Schell) needs Steiner's help to vouch for him so he can get the Iron Cross medal he is obsessed with getting. Schell will go to any lengths to get the medal, and tries to convince Steiner to vouch for him regarding a battlefield event (that didn't happen the way Stransky said it did). Steiner, predictably, dislikes officers almost as much as he hates the war, and refuses to do it. At one point Steiner throws his own Iron Cross on Stansky's desk and blurts, "Here, take it!" but nothing less then a real Iron Cross will do. The two continue to be in conflict for the rest of the film, all done in a very murky subplot that is sometimes unclear - the main issue I have with this movie. This was obviously a herculean effort by Peckinpah, and despite the muddy subplot that the film centers around, the battle scenes are fairly well done. Filmed partly in Croatia - that was still firmly in the Communist Bloc at the time of filming - the battle scenes feature genuine T-34 tanks along with dozens of extras during the Russian assault scenes and give the movie a real touch of authenticity. Set in spring 1943 - one of the rare lulls in the Ostfront between Stalingrad and the colossal battle at Kursk - it does manage to give a sense of the overwhelming enemy facing the German Wehrmacht during all stages of the war. There's enough great battle scenes here to distract from the, somewhat weak subplot and to show what war in the mud of Russia might have been like. Unfortunately the movie has a relatively weak ending - Steiner and Stransky are still alive but still battling on at the end. So the ultimate fate of the two strongest characters is left untold.All in all a great war movie, if a little frustrating to interpret while viewing.

grantss Peckinpah's WW2 masterpiece.1943. Stalingrad has fallen and The German Army is being pushed back on the Eastern Front. Nowhere is the situation more dire for the Germans than at the Kuban Bridgehead / Taman Peninsula. Here we see the war through the eyes of a platoon of German reconnaissance troops. Their senior NCO is a grizzled, resourceful veteran, Corporal Steiner (played by James Coburn). He is unconventional, insubordinate and irreverent, but the regiment's commander, Colonel Brandt (James Mason), tolerates this as he gets results. However, his company has a new commanding officer, the inexperienced Captain Stransky (Maximilian Schell). Stransky is a by-the-book, authoritarian aristocrat and him and Steiner are bound to clash. Moreover, Stransky is obsessed with winning the Iron Cross.Directed by Sam Peckingpah (Straw Dogs, The Wild Bunch, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), this is Peckinpah's Magnum Opus. Very gritty and realistic portrayal of war. Shows perfectly the chaos, terror and desperation of battle - the perfect maelstrom of war. Through the characters we see the different soldiers you meet in a war - the tough, resourceful ones, the political operators, the fanatics, the scared recruits, the paranoid ones, the realists. This gives a great insight into how different people, even on the same side and in the same unit, can view the same war. These characters also provide a commentary on war - it's pointlessness, hopelessness and wastefulness. Peckinpah rams this home with some very tense and graphic battle scenes. His camera work and editing are particularly impressive, conveying well the life-or-death struggle that is being carried out, as well as the randomness of injury and death.Like most Peckinpah movies its a bit rough around the edges. There are some continuity gaps, military inaccuracies and a few plot points aren't entirely sound. However, none of these are major and, if anything, the looseness of the production contributes positively to the movie. The lack of polish adds to the grittiness. Good work by the entire cast. James Coburn is solid as Steiner, as is James Mason as Colonel Brandt. Good support by David Warner as the war-weary, cynical Captain Kiesel. Pick of the bunch is Maximilian Schell who is perfect as the cold, scheming, manipulative Captain Stransky.A classic and one of the greatest war movies ever made.

virek213 When it came to Sam Peckinpah as a filmmaker, there was never an easy way of doing things, and a penchant for doing nothing the way Hollywood wanted. When he wasn't battling with studio chiefs and producers (which was a great deal of the time), he was frequently battling with critics who liked to nail him for his graphic violence and the complex approach he took to that violence, especially with films like THE WILD BUNCH and STRAW DOGS. It earned him the fairly distorting misnomer "Bloody Sam", which didn't really begin to explain the depth for which he cared about filmic art. And probably no other film of the fourteen he made was quite as infuriating as his 1977 World War II film CROSS OF IRON.Based on the novel of the same name by Willi Heinrich, the film is set along the Eastern Front of World War II, where in 1943 the battle between Stalin's Soviet forces and Hitler's German forces was becoming the personification of a meat grinder war. James Coburn, a Peckinpah favorite, gives another extremely probing performance as Sergeant Rolf Steiner, the leader of a vastly outmanned and outgunned platoon of German foot soldiers, who learns that his particular squad is about to be taken over by the very autocratic Captain Hauptmann Stransky (Maximillian Schell). For reasons that are quite selfish, namely the desire to get the German equivalent of the Purple Heart or Bronze Star, the Iron Cross, Schell forces Coburn to go into battle against a regiment of the Soviet army that literally cuts their platoon to pieces. As is par for the course in a Peckinpah film, we have two men in conflict with one another, both practically two sides of the same German coin, only one of them (Coburn) cares more for the lives of his men, and Schell just cares about getting that damned Iron Cross, and is so blatant about that ambition that he tells Coburn, "I will show you how a true Prussian fights." Coburn then retorts, quite rightly, "Then I will show you where the Iron crosses grow." It is not too surprising that the battle and action scenes in CROSS OF IRON are distinct from every other filmmaker that has ever lived; we are, after all, talking about Sam Peckinpah here. And he certainly doesn't make things easy; besides the carnage that he shows, he is as precise as ever at showing how the horrors of war affect the men that have to fight it, and how alienated and anesthetized they can be to death and killing on a mass scale we hope never to revisit. Coburn, of course, is brilliant in his role as the humane Steiner whose only concern is for the men he leads and not for the officer corps, especially not the vainglorious Schell (another fine performance). Both actors are supported by a great cast that includes, among others, Senta Berger (who played the love interest in the director's 1965 Civil War western MAJOR DUNDEE), David Warner, and James Mason.Unfortunately, CROSS OF IRON failed to find much of an audience outside of continental Europe because Peckinpah depicted World War II in such a politically incorrect way: from the point-of-view of German foot soldiers, as opposed to Americans and/or Brits, something that clearly seemed to alienate people just wanting to see a standard-issue war film where good guys and bad guys are clearly distinguishable. But that's John Wayne theatrics of the worst kind; and in real war, the line between good and bad is not only a thin one but it's a line that is also frequently crossed. In any case, Coburn, Schell, Mason, Warner, and their fellow German soldiers are frontline soldiers in the heat of battle, not the Nazi commandants who gassed six million Jews with impunity in the concentration camps. They may be wearing the uniform of a country and a leader with a (to say the least) unjust cause, but that by itself doesn't diminish the reality of the horrors they experience, and in that respect it makes them no different from the Americans, the British, or even the Soviets.Helped immensely by a crew that includes the great British cinematographer John Coquillon, who had already worked with Peckinpah on STRAW DOGS and PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, CROSS OF IRON is one of those films that ranks with the best films about any war ever made, whether it's about World War I (ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT; PATHS OF GLORY), World War II (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN), or Vietnam (BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY; PLATOON; FULL METAL JACKET). Even with a few flaws in it, this is a movie that needs to be restored to its full original, and extremely disturbing, glory and power, especially for how it adds to Peckinpah's reputation as an ultimate seeker of the truth of Man's contradictions, no matter how disturbing or politically incorrect he is in doing so.

denis888 Sam Peckinpah was real master - his Major Dundee is a classic. Here, he tried the very nerve of many Russians - so-called Great Patriotic War in Soviet Union, here we see Taman region of 1943 and all is shown through several German army officers and soldiers. James Coburn and Maximillian Schell are mani stars, and well, they do good job. But then, all the right message of the movie - War Is All Hell - is somewhat blurred and lost. One thing which stands on the way and does not allow to delve deeper into the plot is any goofs - Russian uniforms are a laughing stock and not correct, many weapons are wrong, even Soviet T34 tanks when firing make a wrong sound. We hear Russian speech in the movie - several times, it is good and clear. several times, it is very heavily accented and all wrong in a choice of words (believe me, I am Russian). Sam Peckinpah dwells too long in brutally violent battle scenes - yes, was that brutal, violent, bloody, dirty, merciless and wild. That is true. But here we expected more of a personal tragedy displayed. Instead, all the deep tragic moments are smashed away with prolonged (too much prolonged battle sequences). It gets to a real drag sometimes. Russians never wore those helmets in attacks like those and rarely fixed bayonet to their Mosin rifles - too heavy and not effective. Russians never attacked like that, too. Russian tanks are also a bit sluggish in the movie, while in reality they were incredibly fast, quick, precise in firing and good for breaking walls. Goofs aside, violence aside, that was a good movie. Another weaker point - too long.