Hell is for Heroes is interesting without being interesting, which isn't nearly as paradoxical as it may sound. As a movie, it's a little better than unremarkable. As a historical document, however, it is extremely engaging--perhaps even fascinating.

In order to appreciate the film it is important to know the story behind it, a story of an actual American military engagement that was hushed up during WWII and not declassified until the early 60s.

In the film, Steve McQueen plays an unimaginatively laconic and withdrawn troublemaker named Reese. Reese was a sergeant before his blatant disrespect for authority resulted in his being busted to the level of a private. Once the mood of the film has been set, we learn that Reese has been assigned to a detachment of men who suspect that they are about to be sent home. Reese doesn't like the sound of going home because he is something of a homicidal maniac who would rather be on the front lines shooting at Germans.

But to his relief (and his companions' dismay), his detachment is sent to support a company that has been holding a particular hill against the Germans on the front. Under Sergeant Larkin (Harry Guardino) and Corporal Henshaw (James Coburn), the detachment makes its way to the front not, as they suspect, to join the company that is already there, but to replace it while that company leaves to provide reinforcements down the line.

The trick is for Sergeant Larkin's handful of men to convince the Germans that the hill they are defending is fully garrisoned. They have to rely on all sorts of subterfuges to keep the Germans from launching an all-out assault, an assault against which they simply could not stand.

The wrinkle that creeps in is that though he is now officially a private, Reese is accustomed to being a sergeant and to directing the activities of the privates around him. Throw into the mix that Larkin's six men are convinced they are all about to be butchered and it is easy to see how Reese's plan to assault the Germans' pillbox--though a longshot--strikes the soldiers as being more attractive than simply waiting around to be annihilated.

But Larkin resists Reese's idea. He has strict orders to resist a German advance as well as he can with his puny force, not to make a preemptive strike. In other words, Reese's plan is essentially mutinous. But when Larkin tries to prevent Reese and the men from going through with the plan, a shell comes out of nowhere and blows him up.

This is really the single moment in the screenplay that makes the entire film worth watching, for the director does an excellent job of bringing the dispute between Reese and Larkin to precisely the point where we would expect any character played by Steve McQueen to throw a punch. And then--precisely then--the shell falls. We can read the shell as some sort of deus ex machina--or possibly as the single most unbelievable detail of a military cover-up that would explain why the story of Larkin's unit was kept under wraps for more than fifteen years.

Even though we see the shell explode with our own eyes, the director and screenwriter and Steve McQueen all work together marvelously to suggest that it was actually Reese who killed Larkin in order to go through with his scheme of assaulting the pillbox.

The rest of the film is dedicated to the kinds of cinematic posturing that we are accustomed to seeing in World War II films. No matter how gritty war is or how valiant our American GIs may have been, the important thing to remember is that there's always some pencil-necked geek (in this case Bob Newhart) who stumbles into the machine gun fire for some comic relief. Nevertheless, it is genuinely funny to hear the comic relief character in a film say, "I'm the entertainment officer."

That kind of self-awareness is what sets this film apart from most other formulaic war movies and makes it surprisingly watchable. The ending, despite being given away by the title, is an aesthetically satisfying portrait of self-sacrifice and courage under fire. Even if the film makes all of the stale moves that most viewers are likely to associate with the genre, it makes those moves in an astonishingly fresh way. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say that Hell Is for Heroes reinvents the war movie, it reinterprets the genre in a way that is likely to be satisfying to people who imagine that there is very little left to be accomplished in such films.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12