Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission" is an American movie from 1988 that was done in co-production with Italy and Yugoslavia and according to IMDb, it is a German-language movie. I doubt that though as looking at the cast, they were definitely speaking English when they made it. Two more years and it will have its 30th anniversary. The director of these slightly over 90 minutes is Lee H. Katzin and he brought a screenplay by three writers to the screen here, to the small screen actually as this one is, like several other "Dirty Dozen" sequels a television release. And with this, I already mentioned the Oscar-winning original that this is based on. It is already the 4th entry to the film series and it came out more than two decades after the first. Taking this into account, it is still pretty solid they have Oscar nominees like Savalas on board and also Borgnine, Oscar winner, who played in these films since the very first.This is the story of a bunch of American renegade soldiers in charge of going against Germany during the Nazi days. Sadly, the story is really generic and so are most of the characters, even if the actors manage to elevate the forgettable-written material on some occasions. I may be a bit biased as I am not a military movie fan at all, but if the story is good, I certainly appreciate a quality work. This is not one of these, however. And as much as I already praised the performances, some of these are also on the forgettable side. Overall, the film should have been 10 minutes shorter or more as it dragged a bit on some occasions. For the most part, it's soldiers acting like tough guys and making the occasional (sexist) joke in here and towards the end, the focus drifts to battle scenes without heavy tank machinery mostly. It's about the foot soldiers. I personally thought this film was never really funny, touching or dramatically and historically relevant, which is especially disappointing as the writers tried to deliver in all these areas. I am not surprised this was the last film from the franchise not counting the short-lived series. It's not worth checking out unless you really really love the three previous films. Thumbs-down.

TankGuy During the Second World war, allied intelligence discovers that 12 top Nazis are to be sent to the Balkans to form a fourth Reich. Major Wright(Telly Savalas)is ordered to assemble a 12 man killing machine known as the "dozen" to attack the train on which the Nazis are travelling and wipe them out...Fatal Mission is the final of the 3 made-for-TV movies which were all spinoffs of Robert Aldrich's 1967 actioner. Immensely entertaining with a skinny plot, Fatal Mission is one of the fast food war movies. You can enjoy this film at any time without taxing your brain cells and it's only an hour and a half. The script is about as cheesy as it gets which will make the movie seem to some like a corny rehash of the 1967 original. In a way this is true, but I wasn't bothered by it at all. Some of the dialogue from the original has been copied and pasted straight into this movie, Lee Marvin's "foul up" speech is repeated word for word by Telly Savalas. The action scenes failed to disappoint with thrilling stunts and impressive special effects. The action builds to a spectacularly explosive finale which looks almost too professional for a TV movie. The cast was okay, Telly was the best part of it. The other actors who made up the dozen were forgettable. However, Telly was pushing 70 when he made this movie and is amazingly versatile. He blisters with plenty of that Kojak-esque charisma that had helped make him an international star. His glory days had come to an end and he spent his last years doing TV and movies like this, but his affecting personality and exuberance would never die.An exciting action flick that delivers an hour and a half of sturdy fun with some unintentional humour. A tired cast headed by Telly Savalas is another bonus. 9/10.

kfo9494 It stole 3 hours of my life. Yes I know the movie only lasted an hour and half but it seemed like 3 hours.I am one of those people that like war movies. I liked the original Dirty Dozen and similar movies. But this one is sad as any I have ever seen. It was like watching a Community Stage production of the original Dirty Dozen with limited funds for the project.The movie goes far beyond the portrayal of Germans as buffoons. When the American's jump on a train the Germans are so inept they they cannot guess the next town the train will be arriving. There are laughable scenes that actually was filmed as serious drama. There are lighter scenes that appear to be meant as serious. Just a poor film all around.Pass this movie and re-watch the original.

alcohom Another made for TV piece of junk! This is an insult of a war movie (I use the word movie in it's loosest possible form!) I thought Telly Savalas's career had hit rock bottom when he did the voice over on that visit Birmingham video that's shown on Tarrant on TV on a semi regular basis, but then I'd forgot he was involved in this! I'd tried to push it into my subconscious memory, but cable TV brought the memory kicking and screaming out of me!! I like the bit (laughs sarcastically!) in the film which claims to be a scene from Liverpool in the forties, but it's blatantly a shot of Zagreb Cathedral in the late eighties. Also the steam train the Commando's are training on shows the JZ (Jugoslavia Zeleznice, or Yugoslav state railways) logo's on the side of the locomotive quite clearly, even though the makers have tried to black them out. Why not just film in the UK, if that's where most of the film is set? Cheap rubbish, and a waste of celluloid!