Haunted by his failure in a previous mission, Major Wilson signs up to lead Operation Mad Dog even though the risks are high. Mad Dog seeks to bring several boats of commandos onto a heavily fortified part of France's coast one of them full of explosives. While the commandos raid the shore the ship will explode and reduce the defences to rubble and leave the area open for attack. However accidents during training are only the start of a fraught and dangerous mission.
From this period it is not unusual to have a commando movie if fact they were quite common and quite popular. Taking this as my reason, I decided to watch this film but quickly regretted bothering. The plot is not anything new training a group of men for a risky mission against all the odds. The first half of the film is quite slow and the training is given none of the wit of Dirty Dozen and other movies that have done it better. Worse still is the fact that the film delves into Major Wilson's personal life, giving long scenes the feel of a melodrama. The actual attack is quite short and quite ordinary lots of men running round alleys for 5 minutes. The model work is also pretty poor considering the time it was made they really could have done better.
Another reason for the film lacking teeth is the fact that I never really cared about the characters. It was surprising that, given how much of the film is spent talking, that only the two lead characters were developed to the point that I could give a damn about either of them. Of the two leads, Bridges is miscast and didn't convince me he was a tough wartime Major. Keir however was solid and I enjoyed his character.
Overall this is a pretty poor film that is dull for the most part. It aspires to be a film like Dirty Dozen but it never manages to get anywhere near it. Poor characters, uninvolving development, weak action and a plot that does exactly what you expect it to. Even if you want a film in this genre you can do way better than this.
