The plot isn’t complicated. It’s World War II, the American brass want to wipe out a French chateau filled with high-ranking German officers, and Major Reisman (Lee Marvin) is ordered to train 12 soldier convicts on death row, and parachute into France with “the dirty dozen” to do the job.
The Dirty Dozen (1967, rated “approved,” 150 minutes) was made nearly 60 years ago, and it offers literally a nearly 60-year-old all-star cast including big names like Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas, and Donald Sutherland.
This is a good war movie for the younger set: nearly 60 years ago the scriptwriters didn’t fill war movie dialog with unmentionable words, and the shooting at the end is cosmetically done without much obvious gore.
This is a good war movie for the older set: it has lots of personal valor, lots of he-man scenes, lots of devotion to duty, lots of clever tricks during the knock down-drag out training scenes, some credible suspense in the action at the chateau, and, in the end, the good guys win.
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Request the book The Dirty Dozen by E.M. Nathanson, on which the movie was based
