This is a sort of clone of Aaldrich's earlier Dirty Dozen, with the action transplanted to the Philippines but focusing largely on a British unit of misfits into whose ranks reluctant Yank soldier Cliff Robertson is dragooned. It works OK as an action movie, although its sometimes cynical dialogue is at odds with its pacifist reputation. Robertson can be seen as representing the States as a whole, reluctantly dragged into a war in which they initially wanted to play no part, to aid the British. The ragtag unit of Brits is a typical collection of English and Scots mostly, all of them lacking in the kind of stiff upper lip and ramrod straight backbone with which all ranks of British soldiers had been portrayed for fifteen years after the end of WWII (until the release of The Long, the Short and the Tall, probably). Michael Caine is the disaffected cockney squaddie who, beneath the jaded exterior, comes closest to typifying the derring-do of the fighting man. Ronald Fraser is the cowardly opportunist who comes a cropper, Ian Bannen the slightly bonkers Scots soldier with whom he falls out. The most interesting character is probably that of the English officer portrayed by Denholm Elliott, a typical English gentleman who is not without bravery but who veers dangerously between ineffectuality and incompetence, and who struggles to win any kind of respect from his men. The relatively civilised portrayal of the Japanese officer playing cat and mouse with the dwindling band of heroes is probably worth mentioning, if only because he is so at odds with the stereotypical image of all the other Japs. Worth a look.
Review of Too Late the Hero
