5 pour l'enfer

While Germany worked furiously on secret weapons like the V-2 rocket and jet engines, America matched them with the invention of a portable trampoline and lead filled baseball. See machine gun nests knocked out by a gymnast that flies higher than the Luftwaffe! Exclaim as a GI takes out Nazis with sniper-like precision with a baseball! Gasp as Klaus Kinski acts like he always does in most any film... sleazy! This Italian made Dirty Dozen clone has its up and downs. For the most part it flows through as any low budget Italian WWII film. Expect inadvertent humor at times that are supposed to be serious and many flubs. Note that the movie is based around a collapsible trampoline and weighted baseball and the commandos that use them. Dancing commandos at that! Watch for the Fred Astaire like moves of the trampoline wielding commando that dances to the movies theme on the radio. Note that few woman can escape the fate that awaits theme in a scene with Klaus Kinski in any film. Almost as an apology to the general awfulness of this film the climax is actually well filmed and runs well as good WWII actions scenes. One of the more amusing Italian b-grade war films.

If there were a subgenre of WWII movies that nonsensically blend pure spaghetti western action with circus athletes enlisted for special missions, this film would undoubtedly be a masterpiece. But alas, I fear such a subgenre doesn't exist, and this isn't just a poorly conceived and executed B-movie. The plot is as thick as two short planks, the dialogues seem written by someone who's never seen a decent movie in his life. Everything is pure caricature, except for the production team who took it very seriously. This isn't to say that good movies can't be made by remixing some of the ingredients used here, but of course, to do so, one must be a good chef, and they do exist...

Gianfranco Parolini, Brad "Action" Harris' house director, was no stranger to anything. He also tried his hand at Macaroni Kombat films with his idiosyncratic mix of action and comedy, albeit without Harris as in this case.

Five US soldiers (Gianni Garko / Aldo Canti / Sal Borgese / Luciano Rossi / Samson Burke) are selected for a special team that is supposed to steal very secret documents from a Nazi villa. A German double agent (Margaret Lee) is supposed to help them there, but she is only able to maintain her cover with difficulty by doing love services for a nasty SS man (of course: Klaus Kinski). The original title of the film is: Five for Hell! And it also breaks out when the five warhorses haunt the villa in the tradition of the "dirty dozen"...

Well, it's not for nothing that MacaroniKombat has been less successful than the spaghetti western genre. There are also elements of slapstick that will certainly put some people off. Only for die-hard fans!

I found 'Five For Hell' immensely enjoyable. I purchased it for .79 cents on amazon marketplace and anxiously awaited it's arrival. When I saw this film I was consuming large amounts of bourbon and I must say, this greatly increased the enjoyment of what is unfairly called 'The Worst film ever made" by the previous reviewer. If you are a fan of fun, guys on a mission type War films, which avoid dramatic elements, and are loaded with excellent action sequences; then 'Five For Hell' is just the ticket. This film is not high art by any means. And for the record it is done in the vein of most Italian Exploitation/Action/War flicks. Pick this baby up and stop off at your local liquor, gun store. I suggest bourbon and shotgun and at least 3,000 rounds of ammunition. I would also suggest Castellari's 'Ingolorious Bastards' if you find this film appealing.

HG

To watch this film is to follow five misfit American soldiers directly into hell, where they beat you up, take your wallet and abandon you.

In my WWII film and literature class, I show Five for Hell's opening credit sequence, which lasts about 15 minutes (pacing, people, pacing), as an example of war movie making at its worst. While the film is about a commando raid, the soundtrack is about a young woman who goes to Los Angeles to become a go-go dancer. Commander Baseball has clearly never thrown a ball in his life, but I guess that doesn't matter when you are going into combat against an army of Bond movie henchmen. Quite possibly a war crime, Five for Hell is a visual root canal.