France 1944. Five U.S army convicts, Lieutenant Yeager, Fred Canfield, Tony, Nick and Bearle are being transported to a military prison when their convoy is ambushed by the Germans. The condemned men use this opportunity to escape and plan on heading to neutral Switzerland. As the men make their way towards the border, they mistakenly kill a platoon of American commandos disguised as Nazis and subsequently fall into the hands of the free French. Lieutenant Yeager is now obligated to aid the French in a secret commando mission, to steal the detonator of the latest V2 rocket...This latter day Macaroni Combat actioner from Enzo G. Castellari is a rip roaring ride in warsploitation. Quentin Tarantino, an avid lover of Italian cinema, borrowed the title and altered it for his spectacular 2009 wartime saga(his Inglourious Basterds is not directly linked to this movie, although it is a homage to Macaroni Combat movies). Castellari is something of a god where Italian cinema is concerned and this film is a fantastic example of why this is the case. Explosive action sequences with crazy stunts, an immense bodycount and spectacular amounts of chaos on show are the order of the day here!. The aforementioned solid action scenes could only be achieved under the helm of Castellari himself and this movie is a firm example of why he is truly adept at directing action. The performances were excellent and the characters likable. Bo Svenson was cool and Fred Williamson and Peter Hooten were also superb. The film is almost comic book-like and I got a laugh out of it's humorous aspects. It couldn't have had a better score from Francesco Di Masi and the title/end credit sequences were awesome in their own right!.This is really everything I want a war movie to be, simple and action packed with decent characters. If you want a session of solid escapism, then this is the movie for you. In fact it's the best the Macaroni Combat subgenre has ever looked!. 9/10

In a nut shell...I tried to watch this when it came out, fell asleep after 15 minutes of it (the dairy farm bit).Its taken me this long to watch it. So it is a Tarantino film, bloody, gory but in a serious comical way. This film is great if you have time to read (unless your fluent in both French and German. Great story, I do not know if it is true to life, but you would hope so. A brilliant story and a great ending. Not as good as Django Unchained.Serious note, the best actor would be Christoph Waltz...he made his character real. Brad Pitt was in the film but I would say as a cameo...plus could not understand a flipping word he said. Melanie Laurent amazing too. We can not see such talent until its out in our face and I have seen some of it.

This film may be from 1978, but it looks at least 10-15 years older than that. You will see an awful lot of German soldiers hurling their weapons in the air as if they were made of plastic and jumping as high as possible while waving their arms. This means they have either been gunned down or blown up by bombs. A single stab wound, a punch or a kick to the face, or a tap to the small of the back with a barrel of a gun causes immediate death or unconsciousness to the fragile enemy Germans. Sometimes the Germans are so in shock at seeing the Americans that they just stand there, waiting to get shot or punched. It's pretty funny, really. The fire scenes are totally unrealistic and look like someone set some toys on fire. I watched the UNCUT EDITION and assume the exploding blood packs used toward the end of the movie were not seen in the original. Take away the blood packs and you got a family film.The storyline wasn't bad except the part about the German POW who escaped (meaning he didn't like being a POW) and is again captured but sides with the Americans... and the pickpocket who had been in jail so long that his hair had grown hippie length but always had a close shave.The acting itself was solid and very believable. Other than that, Quel maledetto treno blindato is pretty much like a cartoon. It is an excellent time killer on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

The prolific Italian helmer Enzo G. Castellari of "Any Gun Can Play "and "Payment in Blood" not only made terrific Spaghetti westerns, but he also made one of the best European B-movie World War II thrillers. This half-dozen "Dirty Dozen" actioneer consists of court-martialed American soldiers and a reckless Air Force fighter pilot. In 1944, they manage to escape from an armed escort of MPs after an enemy aircraft spots them. A German fighter attacks the convoy, and the MP guards actually shoot the prisoners as they jump out of the trucks for cover. Strapping tall blond Bo Svenson is cast as Lieutenant Robert Yeager; he was a pilot who used his P-51 Mustang to visit his girlfriend one time too many. As Private Fred Canfield, Fred Williamson endures racial slurs and prejudice from both sides. Williamson smokes his usual cigar and wears his handle-bar mustache. Once these fellows are free of the MPs, our anti-heroes head for neutral Switzerland. Along the way, they pick up a German deserter who agrees to lead them to Switzerland. Later, he dies tragically when he links up with a group of commandos and then is shot in the back by them. The deserters kill the commandos as revenge for their killing the German. Later, our heroes discover that they have killed Americans masquerading as Germans. Naturally, when the French Resistance come upon them, the Resistance believes that the deserters are in fact the commandos that they gunned down for killing the German. Consequently, they find themselves replacing those commandos to help a stubborn, hidebound colonel (Ian Bannen of "The Hill") accomplish his mission. Along the way, they allow the Nazis to capture some of their number so they can storm a stronghold and acquire motorized transportation. The Colonel and his commandos had trained to steal the gyroscope from the guidance system of a prototype of the new V-2 rocket warhead being transported on a Nazi train. Grudgingly, the Colonel uses them in place of his men. Our heroes are sympathetic and charismatic. "Eagles Over London" composer Francesco De Masi provides an atmospheric musical score, and Castellari orchestrates several machine gun clashes. He does an exceptional job with the firefight at the train, particularly with the use of slow-motion. The last battle displays energy with to spare with Nazis whirling as bullets riddle their bodies. At one point, they blow up a bridge, and one of the deserters makes a desperate "Great Escape" bid on motorcycle to pass along information to his comrades. There are couple of surprises and the guy who survives is not the one that you think will live. The matte work is reasonably well done in the long shots for this low-budget war epic. Five men wrote the screenplay. The train crash in the final quarter-hour is obviously a miniature exploding but looks pretty cool. "Inglorious Bastards" is diverting fun. Unfortunately, Quentin Tarantino's remake is nowhere as entertaining as Castellari's straightforward version. The graphics on the opening and the end credits was done by the same man who did similar graphics on Sergio Leone's "Fistful of Dollars."