Tweet

James Oliver takes a look at this epic tale of GI's in wartime Europe, and finds a commendably realistic treatment, shorn of Hollywood heroics.

Two years after he produced The Guns of Navarone, Carl Foreman returned to the battlefield with The Victors, an altogether different sort of war film. Gone is the all star derring-do; in its place, a realistic – at times brutally so – portrait of the liberation of Europe.

It follows the exploits of an American platoon (headed by Wallach) as they fight their way first up through Italy and then down through France. Availing themselves of local women, disobeying orders and ignoring the rules of gentlemanly warfare, these GIs are a sour and cynical crew driven not by patriotism or camaraderie but by ruthless self interest.

Even by the standards of most war films, it's an episodic picture: keeping up with the various characters requires concentration. Cumulatively, however, the results are extremely powerful: the horror of war is shown not in the combat scenes but in the things that war obliges people to do. This is the war as it was really fought, shorn of Hollywood heroics and sentimentality.

 

James Oliver on 21st December 2009
View all 107 of James Oliver's reviews