5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic American Film

J.C. · October 31, 2005

(function() { P.when('cr-A', 'ready').execute(function(A) { if(typeof A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel === 'function') { A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel('review_text_read_more', 'Read more of this review', 'Read less of this review'); } }); })(); .review-text-read-more-expander:focus-visible { outline: 2px solid #2162a1; outline-offset: 2px; border-radius: 5px; } Don't let the nay-sayers have their way, those weaned on loud, big budget, thought challenged contemporary war films like Black Hawk Down, Glory, Pearl Harbor, and the like. This is the real thing. Sam Fuller, finally given a reasonable budget (though no where near the budget of the films mentioned above: Josh Hartnett's make-up was probably more than what Fuller could spend on costumes), produced in 1980 a strange, not thoroughly satisfactory but weirdly affecting and anachronistic little movie about a rifle squad in World War II. What became known once this film quickly disappeared from the theatres was that it was not what Fuller intended, that the studio had cut it significantly. To Fuller fans, this was his Greed, his Magnificent Ambersons, the film that could have been but wasn't. That it was his perhaps his most polished film, that it took a decidedly unsentimental view of war and American soldiers, that it contained one of Lee Marvin's final great performances, none of this could make up for the nagging question of what could have been. Now, with this reconstruction, we know, and it is indeed his masterpiece, and one of the best movies made ever about men in war. It is still a relatively low budget affair, which will turn off those used to CGI and big recongnizable stars. But what concerns Fuller is the grunt eyed view of battle, and for that he doesn't need a Bruckheimer budget. If this film can be compared to something recent, it would be Band of Brothers, another relatively unsentimental depiction of American soldiers in WWII. But Spielberg nor Tom Hanks would ever go as far as Fuller does in showing how hard and deeply cynical war can make a person, as Fuller does in the great scene of the GI partially blown up by a booby trap and Marvin chuckling as he shows the poor guy his blown off testicle and proclaiming something along the lines of "Hey, that's why you got two." The film is full of these moments. The squad doesn't give a damn about the replacements that show up to take the place of the replacements just killed. As one of the men says, the new guys are just "walking dead men." Are Marvin and his squad heroes? Fuller would laugh at that. His men have one goal in mind, and that is survival. Fuller, an infantryman himself in the First Division during the war, knows what war is. And that first hand knowledge is evidenced in every frame of this movie. The reconstruction gives the original film a much greater scope, giving it the feel of the tiny epic it promised to be in 1980. Fuller doesn't romanticize his heroes--this isn't Spielberg, this isn't Bruckheimer. He makes them hard, bitter men, boys really, who do what they have to in order to live another day. At the end, the Fuller stand-in, the wanna be writer in the squad, says, "I'm going to dedicate my book to the men who survived." This is that story, and as we slog away in another way where young men and women are dying every day, Fuller's cautionary tale is needed more than ever.

5.0 out of 5 stars Review without Spoilers - Pros & Cons

T.T.H. · April 20, 2023

The Big Red One (1980) is a U.S. WWII film written & directed by Samuel Fuller. The film stars Lee Marvin alongside Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, Siegfried Rauch, Bobby Di Cicco, & Kelly Ward. The film is based on Fuller's own experiences & was produced independently on a low budget & heavily cut on its original release, but a restored version, The Big Red One: The Reconstruction (2004) features many of the scenes that were originally cut & improves the film in my opinion. Here are the pros & cons of this film as I see it, I hope this helps you.Pros:1. In my opinion, the second-best WWII movie made after Come & See (1985)2. The film is very accurate, in fact I use to listen to the stories from a Scottish gentleman inn the 1970s who served in WWII as a medic until the end of the war, & it is amazing how similar some of his experiences were to those in this film3. Lee Marvin does a great job in this film and brings credibility to many of the scenes4. Funny, I never was a Mark Hamill fan, but I like him & his acting in this film5. Since this film was based of the WWII experiences of the director, it gives credibility to the filmCons:1. If you are looking for a WWII film with constant action, special effects, computer effects, & pointless excessive gore, then this WWII film may not be for you2. Some may find this film a bit disjointed, but that is actually a more accurate portrayal of how service was in many cases in WWII & how companies experienced the war from location to location

5.0 out of 5 stars Big Red One as you never saw it before...

P.S. · August 3, 2005

Forget your old copy of The Big Red One. Besides being dated, it is not the full picture as Samuel Fuller intended it to be.This is the one, The Big Red One.Presented in its full splendor, full irony, full sadness and full tragedy.Lee Marvin plays The Sergeant to the hilt and his actor's skills are Oscar worthy in this one as they were in "The Dirty Dozen" or in John Boorman's "Hell in the Pacific".Bobby DiCicco and Mark Hamill play the youthful soldiers in his platoon, sent into the heat of battle on all fronts and you can watch them being "hardened" as they go.It is a simple and honest tale that stands up to movies like "Saving Private Ryan" or "When Trumpets Fade" and I would even dare say that is better then "Saving Private Ryan".This is a movie made by somebody who actually was there on the shores of Africa, Sicily, Anzio and Normandy and therefore does not romanticize war, but rather gives a gripping account of the crudity, vulgarity and yes the passion that goes with a war of this kind.It is certainly blander nowadays than when it was originally released, yet certain realities remain and are told vividly in this tale of young men sent to certain slaughter.The restored version is worth gold.Superb color resolution, excellent sound reconstruction (watch the included special disc to know more about the restoration), make this a theatrical experience of enormous proportions.Being longer by about 42 minutes, it has a far better pace and solves some "mysteries" that arose when the studio decided to cut some key scenes out of the original storyline.By the way, another couple of movies of this kind saw the same fate back in those years. One was "Battle of Neretva" and the other "Breakthrough - Cross of Iron II".Both were so badly cut and chopped, that the result were two "maimed movies" that could never hope to be well received in movie theatres.I only hope a kind soul will work hard to restore both to their full lengths. One used to run at 2hours and 40mins and the second at about 2hrs 10mins.The obtainable copies, even nowadays are: for the firs, 100 minutes and for the second, barely 98 minutes.No wonder then when some pictures are literally "bombed" out of the market.Now, at least for "Big Red One", we have the full length movie, even though, as mentioned in the special inserts, there are still a couple of "minor" scenes missing, due to either loss of the material involved or lack of fluidity of the restored storyline (those "bits" still surviving are included in disc two and help to understand why they were not included within this final restored cut).If you enjoyed the "hacked" version, you will certainly enjoy the "full" version and never look back again on the other.Certainly recommended to anyone.

Würdige Rekonstruktion!

J. · June 5, 2005

(function() { P.when('cr-A', 'ready').execute(function(A) { if(typeof A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel === 'function') { A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel('review_text_read_more', 'Read more of this review', 'Read less of this review'); } }); })(); .review-text-read-more-expander:focus-visible { outline: 2px solid #2162a1; outline-offset: 2px; border-radius: 5px; } Endlich! Der am meisten unterschätzte Kriegsfilm in seiner wahren Gestalt. Der Film selber hatte mich schon als Teenager beeindruckt. Besonders die Rahmengeschichte, die dem Sergeant unmittelbar nach Kriegsende/Waffenstillstand widerfuhr, gab den Film die Richtung vor. Hier geht's nicht um große Knallerei, Heldentum, Befreiung oder Sieg. Einzig dem Wesen des Krieges und der Absurdität desselbigen sowie der Auswirkung auf die Menschen, die daran teilnahmen, stehen hier im Vordergrund. Samuel Fuller (der Regisseur) drückte es so aus: "Der wahre Kriegsruhm besteht darin, am Leben zu bleiben." Damit kann sich der Film durchaus mit den Kernaussagen von "Black Hawk Down" und "We were Soldiers" gleichstellen, wenn nicht sogar an die Spitze stellen, da er fast 20 Jahre vor diesen entstand.Die große rote Eins ist das Zeichen für das erste amerikanische Infanterie-Regiment, die so ziemlich immer als erste an der Front war. Geschildert werden hier die (fiktiven) Erlebnisse eines Sergeants und eines Kerns seiner Soldaten, die alle Einsätze im 2. Weltkrieg überlebten: Afrika, Sizilien, Normandie usw. Die Story selber ist zwar fiktiv, beruhen aber auf den Erlebnissen Fullers, der im 2. Weltkrieg Frontkämpfer in der U.S. First Infantry war. Schon zu Beginn erscheinen die Worte: "This is Fictional Life based on Factual Death".Die Rekonstruktion durch den Kritiker und Filmemacher Richard Schickel hält sich an die letzte Drehbuchfassung Fuller's, der am 30. Oktober 1997 verstarb. Schickel wertete die noch vorhandenen 21.000 Filmmeter aus und rekonstruierte anhand des Drehbuchs, was Fuller einmal wirklich auf die Leinwand bringen wollte. Laut Fuller sollte der Film selber mal 4 Stunden gehen, in die Kinos kamen damals nur knapp die Hälfte. Nun ist der Film ca. 2 1/2 Stunden lang. Dafür sind die Szenen schlüssig zusammengesetzt. Bild und Ton sind makellos aufgearbeitet und entsprechen dem heutigen Standart. Das der Film 25 Jahre alt ist, merkt man nur am Fehlen heutiger Special Effects, die die Kämpfe wie in "Saving Private Ryan", "Black Hawk Down" und "We were Soldiers" so fotorealistisch aussehen lassen. Das schadet aber weder der Story und noch der Aussage des Films.Lee Marvin zeigte hier einer der besten Leistungen seiner Karriere. Und Mark Hamill bewies, das er mehr als nur Darthvaders Sohn spielen kann. So gut wie hier war er nie.Ich hoffe, das sich niemand an der neuen Synchronisation stört. Aus verständlichen Gründen war dies für die deutsche Sprachfassung wohl nicht anders zu lösen. Jedenfalls finde ich diese Lösung besser, als die nur neuen Filmszenen mit anderen Sprechern nachzusynchronisieren oder ganz auf deutsche Sprache zu verzichten und statt dessen nur Untertitel einzublenden.Ich wünsche mir, das mehr verstümmelte Filme so anständig restauriert und aufgearbeitet werden würden. So wird auf der Bonus-DVD nicht nur dem Regisseur, sondern auch den Restauratoren, allen voran Richard Schickel durch gelungene Dokumentationen Tribut gezollt. Außerdem gibt es noch Szenenvergleiche, nicht verwendete oder alternative Szenen, ein Promo-Special von 1979, sowie Trailer, Radiospots und eine Fotogalerie.Also Rundum ein gelungener Film, zwar kein Director's Cut, aber eine würdige Rekonstruktion.

Merci c’est ce que je voulais

R. · March 15, 2025

Le bon produit

Absoluter Kult!

M. · May 27, 2025

Ein absoluter Kultfilm. Muss in jede Sammlung!

Die hätten auch alleine den Todesstern besiegt...

W. · May 14, 2021

Wie kann ein solcher Schund so viele positive Bewertungen haben?Natürlich habe ich im Vorfeld schon vermutet, dass der Film extrem proamerikanisch ist. Das es aber so extrem ist… Unglaublich.Man fragt sich, wie die Wehrmacht mit solchen Soldaten überhaupt bis kurz vor Moskau kommen konnte. Der deutsche Michel lässt sich wieder reihenweise idiotisch abschießen und ist an Dämlichkeit nicht zu überbieten.Spätestens nach dem D-Day habe ich den Film ausgemacht.Wahrscheinlich kommen sich amerikanische Kriegsveteranen auch durch diesen Film verarscht vor.Der Film wandert gleich weiter nach eBay.Da schaue ich mir jetzt lieber einen realistischeren Film als diesen an...Rambo.

Il grande uno rosso

M.V. · January 26, 2024

Film di vecchia data bellissimo per chi ama questo genere. Il resto si commenta guardandolo. Consegna perfetta come al solito GRAZIE Bolo