This is a sequel to the very under rated Peckinpah classic CROSS OF IRON . You remember it don't you ? James Coburn as Sgt Steiner getting on the wrong side of Maximillian Schell's Captain Stransky on the Soviet Eastern Front in 1943 . BREAKTHROUGH as it's known in Britain is a film trying to market itself as a sequel and I'm afraid if it resembles anything it probably resembles a plot device in DOCTOR WHO called regeneration where a Timelord can turn in to the same character with a completely different physical appearance and personality . In the case of Steiner he was last seen as being a cynical character with a strong resemblance to James Coburn who suddenly looks like a much respected stage actor from Wales who's slumming it in a not very good movie . Strangely enough Captain Stransky is also a Timelord . I suppose that's an advantage if you've got several million soldiers in the Red Army who want payback for having their families strung up with piano wire There are a couple of good battle sequences at the start of BREAKTHROUGH but if you've seen CROSS OF IRON you'll instantly know where these scenes were stolen from . You also can't help noticing a bizarre lack of continuity to these scenes . Steiner you remember was a soldier's soldier , he might be fighting for a murderous regime but his loyalty was to his men not to the regime and for some strange reason he is now wearing a dress uniform on the front line and these's not even a speck of dust on his uniform . Maybe his clothes can regenerate after every battle with the Soviets ? You can't fail to notice how crap he is in a battle either . He's given an order to blow up a tunnel . Arrives at he tunnel , staggers down the tunnel no doubt looking for the nearest drinks cabinet , staggers alongside a Soviet tank , drops a grenade in the tank , and gets back in to his truck looking for the nearest bar . All he had to do was connect a wire to a plunger and blow the tunnel up which seems beyond his capabilities . In fact if this is the standard of the average Wehrmacht soldier the Soviets must be glad they didn't have to fight any Italian conscriptsI'm being very kind here because I awarded BREAKTHROUGH four out of ten on its own merits - not as a sequel to CROSS OF IRON in which case it would have been awarded minus points . It is a totally disjointed film especially where editing is concerned where the story jumps around from location to location with little rhyme or reason with the big name cast realising they're just doing it for the money . It says a lot when its predecessor was directed by someone suffering from intense substance abuse and was a hundred times better than this

***SPOILERS*** After having their differences in the previous WWII epic "The Iron Cross" both Sgt. Steiner, Richard Burton, and his former company commander Let.-now promoted to Major-Stransky, Helmut Griem, are reunited, and as bitterly opposed to each other as ever,in Paris for a well deserved period of R&R, rest and recreation, from the Eastern Front.Sgt. Steiner's R&R ended abruptly after spending his first day-and night-in Paris bedding down Maj. Stransky's French girlfriend Yvette, Veronique Vendell, when he's called by the German High Command to report to the Normandy Front. As luck would have it The allies decided to storm the French beaches just days after the battle weary Steiner arrived in that country for his first time, besides being hospitalized for battle wounds, away from the battlefield since the war began!Doing what he does best Sgt. Steiner rustles up, and inspires, his men to fight off the Allied advance into France in a daring and at times suicidal holding pattern action that stalls the US Armys push beyond the Normandy beachheads. It's then that Steiner is told by his former divisional commander, back on the Eastern Front, Gen. Hofmann, Curt Jurgen, that the assassination of the German Fuhrer Adolph Hitler is in the works by him and a number of fellow and disgruntled, in how the war is going, German Generals. Why Gen. Hoffman would confide all this to a lowly enlisted man who can turn him in and have his entire plan scuttled is never really explained! It's only assumed that Steiner is really a Hollywood-style "Good German" in spite of his excellent combat record that shows that he's as fanatical a German, or Nazi, in the defense of his country as Hitler, who's being targeted by Gen. Hoffman to be killed,is! It's then that for no explainable reason at all that Steiner has a sudden change of heart in fighting and risking his life for the Fatherland!Steiner decides to turn his services over to the victorious allies by selling out his own men whom he's now in command of! This shocked me in that Steiner being the loyal and dedicated German fighting man that he is would on a dime turn on his own men, as well as country, just because Gen. Hofmann & Co. are planning to do in his supreme commander Adolph Hitler! If anything Steiner, who had fought for his Fuhrer so valiantly all these years, would have turned in Hofmann for treason not, like he did, go along with him so willingly.As history showed us the assassination attempt on Hitler was a complete dud with him miraculously surviving, off camera, the suitcase bomb explosion in his bunker-The Wolf's Lair-in the East Prussian woods. This put Gen. Hofmann in hot water together with his fellow conspirators who ended up being rounded up and shot, and in some cases hanged and decapitate, by the Nazi Gestapo. In the case of General Hofmann himself he put a bullet in his head to avoid being made to stand trail before a kangaroo-like Nazi People's Court!With Sgt. Steiner sticking his neck out in secretly negotiating a surrender of his troops to the US Army he's now in the unenviable and dangerous position of stopping his own troops, commanded by his sworn enemy Maj. Stransky, from stopping the US armored advance by having them gunned down, by himself, before they can do it! The film "Breakthrough" also has American actors Robert Mitchum, as Col. Rogers, Rod Steiger, as Gen. Webster, and Michael Parks, as Sgt. Anderson, in it as the GI's that Sgt. Steiner is secretly dealing with who look and act as if they would have liked to have been somewhere else. Like on a Caribbean island soaking up the sun and drinking Pina colada's instead of being in the middle of a war-zone and being shot at with only K-rations and canteen water to subsist on.Richard Burton really looks terrible, as well as his age, as the battle hardened Sgt. Steiner. The fearless Steiner is seen running around in the movie with his German helmet looking like that of the US Marine Corps. with a canvas covering over it. The grizzled and hard bitten Sgt. Steiner is also seen wearing, for the most part in the movie, a neatly pressed and tailored military parade dress uniform not,like the men he commands, standard battle worn and dirty German Army combat fatigues! The film ended as you would have expected with the indestructible Sgt. Steiner surviving all the carnage but being left out in the cold with no country or home to go back to with him being shot on sight, by his beloved German combat trooper, if he ever tried to return.

I expected rubbish, and that´s what I got. Compared to this, Andrew McLaglen´s Wild Geese is actually pretty classy, and the original Cross of Iron definitely shines! Richard Burton can be pretty awful if needed. His version of Steiner expresses his hatred of war by staring like a madman and looking generally sick. It is also funny to see the two surviving actors from the Cross of Iron (didn´t the other one die?) playing dull, diluted versions of their former selves. The single most annoying element of the film, however, is the score by Peter "Raumpatrouille" Thomas. At his best Thomas is a genius. But here the music is irritating, gimmicky, and totally unsuitable for the film´s style. At one scene a German soldier sits in a hut with a radio, listening to some weird space-age Peter Thomas Singers. 1944, yeah. A fanatic lover of war films MAY want to check this out.

A film can usually be judged on its own merits. But a film claiming to be a sequel to Peckinpah's "Cross of Iron" and featuring some of the greatest actors who ever lived needs to be held to a high standard. "Breakthrough" is a waste of time and fails in virtually all departments.The plot cannot be taken seriously. It begins in late May of 1944, during the German retreat on the Eastern Front. "Cross of Iron" is set in January of 1943, yet our sequel begins where it left off, yet it's almost 16 months later. We are immediately introduced to several familiar characters, none of whom seem to measure up with their personalities from the original film. Sergeant Steiner (Richard Burton) is ordered by Captain Stransky (Helmut Griem) to blow up a railroad tunnel in order to prevent the Russians from using it. Steiner's squad fails miserably. Stop again: Coburn's Steiner was a crack NCO. He wiped out several different Russian outposts, patrols and tanks – with style. It's out of character for Steiner to be defeated to easily by one lousy Russian tank. Anyway: Steiner takes a breather in Paris, right as the Allies land in Normandy. His unit is transported to France, where they occupy the village of St. Bologne. General Hoffman (Curd Jurgens) appears and orders Steiner to cross the enemy lines and inform the American commanders (Robert Mitchum and Rod Steiger) that the German high command is plotting to assassinate Hitler and would like to surrender. This plan comes undone, and the American forces move to attack St. Bologne – which Stransky has planned to blow up – a plot which will wipe out the attackers and the civilian inhabitants.That's quite a bit to cram into one film, and McLaglen doesn't seem to know where he's going with this material. This is a very open-ended film, with little to link the sequence of events except pure coincidence. The script is serviceable on its own, but nothing here compares to "Cross". For starters, this new film ignores the last ten minutes or so of "Cross" and picks up right after the death of Lt. Triebig. Steiner appears to have no remorse against Stransky and, along with Kruger (Klaus Lowitsch) and Anselm (Dieter Schidor), joins the retreating force. Burton's portrayal of Steiner is simply unacceptable. For one thing, he's a bit too old and haggard to be considered a combat sergeant. He never gets involved in any physical action for this exact reason. Instead, he merely delivers dialog with a phony German accent and kills just as many Americans as fellow Germans as he seems confused as to whose side he's on. Unlike Coburn's Steiner, Burton's fails to stand for anything: he is loyal to his men, but winds up killing several of them in order to keep a promise to Colonel Rogers (Mitchum).The film also fails miserably because, despite a slew of Hollywood legends and some familiar German actors, the acting is banal and limited. Mitchum and Steiger are both wasted in mediocre roles as American officers. Steiger's part is particularly disappointing, as he always seems sincere but isn't given very much to work with. The only American actor in the ensemble who seems properly placed in Michael Parks in a small but seemingly-enjoyed role as Sgt. Anderson, who tags along with Mitchum on various dangerous outings. Dare I forget to mention the presence of the legendary Curd Jurgens, who gets little to do here but plays his typical typecast role of an aristocratic German General with gusto despite his obviously forced surroundings!The cast is chock full of German supporting actors, all of whom are forced into roles beneath their acting ability. Helmut Griem ("The McKenzie Break") is a pretty sorry stand-in for Maximilian Schell. He sure seems interested in getting his Iron Cross, but theme is reduced to an occasional reference or gag. The new Stransky is nothing more than a typical, one-dimensional Nazi out for American blood. Klaus Lowitsch is back and is a lot of fun as Corporal Kruger, although his character has changed, too: now he's wearing a German uniform and it's hard to tell is his cynicism is sincere. Werner Pochath ("Wartime") is a predictable pervert amongst the ranks of Steiner's squad; Gunter Meisner ("Is Paris Burning?") pops up in his usual role as a creepy SS officer; Horst Janson ("Shout at the Devil") is completely wasted as Steiner's company commander; even Joachim Hansen ("The Eagle has Landed") has a minimal role as Hoffman's aide. This film yearns for James Mason and David Warner, whose characters are simply forgotten in the midst of the chaos. On its own, "Breakthrough" still fails to make any sort of impression. The lack budgetary restrictions show up in nearly every frame. The first few scenes are composed almost entirely of stock footage from "Cross of Iron" and "The Battle of Neretva", while the rest feature a tremendous lack of extras and flair. We rarely see more than half-dozen actors on screen at one time, and the battle in the St. Bologne uses many of the same shots more than once, alternate takes of some shots, and some rather shabby soundstages. The direction always seems pretty standard and unimaginative; McLaglen, who's usually at least a competent director, doesn't take any chances in this film. Nothing happens that we haven't seen before, and the lack of flair makes the whole affair seem even more pedestrian. The music score is ill-fitting and badly written. It's composed mostly of symphonic cues which belong in a spaghetti western – or perhaps one of Antonio Margheriti's early sci-fi adventures – but certainly not an anti-war film! Fans of the cast will be disappointed. Fans of its predecessor will be severely disappointed. It's even a let-down for me, and I consider myself a pretty opened-minded war film fan. Don't even bother with this one.