Zona de Combate

Another low rent WW2 epic made in Yugoslavia with a largely local cast and crew, propped up by a couple of big Hollywood names. HELL RIVER is the condensed version of a four part TV movie entitled PARTIZANI, and it simply isn't very good. The direction is weak, the action sequences feel like stock footage although they're not, and Hollywood offers much slicker, more professionally made war films than this one.

Saying that, HELL RIVER isn't the worst of its type. Some of the imagery is pretty good, like the line of tanks rolling through a debris-strewn township, and the producers certainly get their money's worth from the WW2-era weapons, costumes, and vehicles they have access to. I've always enjoyed Rod Taylor's acting performances and he doesn't disappoint here either, although he does seem to have aged very rapidly in the space of just a decade. Adam West is as wooden as ever and struggles in one of his most miscast roles as a Nazi officer. There's action a-plenty, but it all feels rather repetitive and, like the whole film, a bit of a waste of time.

I saw this under one of its many titles, "Hell River", and was pretty unimpressed. It has a few things going for it--for one thing the photography is quite crisp, unlike many 1970s Euro-made WW 2 "epics", which tended to be either washed-out or muddy--and the music is at least appropriate and doesn't drown out or overwhelm what's on screen--but there are a lot more cons than pro's. The performances aren't particularly good, especially Adam West, wildly miscast as a Nazi officer; he is stiff as a board, has no chemistry or connection with anyone in the cast and slips in and out of an embarrassingly bad German accent. Rod Taylor is stalwart as usual, but he's simply too old to play an action hero. Xenia Gratsos, here billed as "Brioni Farrell", matches West's wooden acting and is rather plain-looking to boot. The plethora of action scenes are done in a very by-the-numbers fashion and tend to be unrealistic, i.e., when the partisans attack a German armored column the Germans are mowed down by the dozens but only a very few partisans fall, despite the Germans opening up with everything they had.

All in all it's not as bad as a lot of the cheap WW 2 crapfests the Italians ground out like sausages in the 1960s and 1970a--my God, what a tsunami of stinkers they were--but it's nothing to write home about. Watchable, to a degree, but not memorable.

A Yugoslav raised in America (Rod Taylor) fights the invading Germans as a leader in the National Liberation Army, aka Yugoslav Partisans. Adam West plays a German captain who's sympathetic toward the Serbians because he's actually Austrian and in love with a Jewess (Brioni Farrell).

"Hell River" (1974), also known as "Guerilla Raid" and "The Partisan" (amongst other titles), is a Serbo-Croatian WW2 film that originally ran 3 hours on Yugoslavian television. This shorter version was released for other markets.

Loosely based on the true events, it comes in the tradition of "The Guns of Navarone" (1961), "The Heroes of Telemark" (1965) and "Hornets' Nest" (1970) and is similar to the future "Force 10 from Navarone" (1978) and "The Eagle Has Landed" (1976). Sure, it's not on the level of the better ones, but it's quite well done and not far off. The longer version is no doubt more compelling.

Interestingly, a few seconds of "Hell River" are featured in Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" (2019) as the fictional movie "The 14 Fists of McCluskey," an Italian flick Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) starred in because he couldn't get significant roles in America.

The film runs 1 hour, 42 minutes, and was shot in Serbia (Sabac, Lazarevac, Mountain Zlatibor and River Drina by the border of Bosnia).

GRADE: B-/B.

In 1941 Yugoslavia . Partisans and Nazi army fight in the hardest , most tragic and greatest battles of Yugoslavia , WWII.At the beginning of the film Partisans attack a German riverboat with a lot of Jews held by the cruel Nazis , there a German officer , Adam West , escapes thanks to a beautiful Jew , Xenia Gratsos . Adam getaways to carry out a merciless vengeance . Later on , Partisans attack other regiments without warning that lead to tragic losses the Germans , which infuriates the German commandant Peter Carsten , as he executes massacres , and punitive expeditions against innocent population . Partisans led by Rod Taylor counterattack which will lead to the utter failure of his partisan followers . After that , the partisans are ambushed during their retreat to Bosnia . At the end the Yugoslav partisans and Nazis battle it out a place called Hell River , taking place the major offensives .

Average WWII movie with decent but really miscast actors , rudimentary effects and it involves tanks, arms , ammunition , and fighter planes . It displays breathtaking battles with big explosions , chaos , hell , suffering , mayhem , fates , heroic deaths and a cast of thousands . An enough budget war movie lost continuity with US cut and bad edition . Confused and bewildered movie with poor action , though it has some spectacular as well as noisy fights , regularly made battle scenes , unrealistic developing , poverty-row equipment and a lot of of the German armored vehicles are really American , as the planes shown are not actually German planes but U P47S. Yugoslavia army provided soldier-extras , costumes , weapons , fighter planes , tanks , trucks and other vehicles they had access to . It includes a silly ski-troopers attack in which the German soldiers are ridiculously killed and a large line of tanks rolling through a ruined and debris-strewn village . It stars some known actors , such as Rod Taylor as an aging partisan against two nasty German officers : Adam West and Peter Carsten .

It packs an atmospheric cinematography and a passable soundtrack, though it often doesn't fit the action .The motion picture released on TV as Hell River and also titled Battle of Belgrado was middlingly directed by Stole Jankovic. The film belongs to a motley group of Yugoslav movies made in the 70s about WWI and WWII with big budget , international stars and produced during Josip Broz Tito dictatorship , such as "Battle of Neretva river" by Veljko Bulajic with Yul Brynner, Franco Nero , Orson Welles , Sylva Koscina ; " Veliki transport" or "Mission Heroes" by Bulajic with James Franciscus , Steve Railsback , Edward Albert, Helmut Berger; " The day that shook the world" or "Sarajevo" with Maximilian Schell , Christopher Plummer , Florinda BolKan ; and "Sutjeska" by Stipe Delic with Richard Burton plating dictator Tito , Irene Papas , this film was made for the 30th anniversary of this battle and considered to be the most expansive movie in the history of the Yugoslav cinema.

In Quentin Tarantino's ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, Leonardo DiCaprio plays an actor named Rick Dalton who, in 1969, is already a washed-up, has-been former Western television series star with a number of forgotten Western and War Movies under his belt...

Including and especially "The 14 Fists of McCluskey" that shows quick footage from this film, HELL RIVER, which is technically impossible since the low-budget Yugoslavian WWII exploitation came out five years after Dalton's time in the Tarantino universe: Then again this obscure Rod Taylor curio, originally and more fitfully titled Partizani aka Partisans (there are only two rivers shown, and neither are hellish), doesn't really exist in HOLLYWOOD since it's become a fictional movie for its fictional star...

On the other hand, an early-seventies Rod Taylor, also a has-been... who gained fame a decade earlier in THE TIME MACHINE and THE BIRDS... was anything but fake. The epitome of a real man and/or man's man, he sure looked it. And by 1974 his screen presence was far less handsome and more rough, rugged and overall world-weary...

His bulbous nose had expanded along with about twenty pounds added onto an already stocky-muscular build, so he resembled more of a character actor than leading man, which fits here since he's far more a character-type piloting the story than the kind of movie star female-audiences were supposed to fall for - which doesn't stop Greek beauty Brioni Farrell from much too quickly doing so...

Back to Tarantino's HOLLYWOOD where Al Pacino plays a Jewish agent talking pop culture shop to his hopeful client in DiCaprio's Dalton: He mentions the series BATMAN, which, as we all know, starred Adam West...

What you may not have known is while Rod Taylor and Brioni Farrell are shown as archive footage in the Rick Dalton "14 Fists of McCluskey" picture during Pacino's expository diatribe, Adam West himself is one of the main stars in HELL RIVER as Austrian Nazi officer Kurt Kohler, who knew and adored Farrell's Anna Kleitz since childhood... That is, the still-handsome leading man/former caped crusader is almost the love interest here...

His part is interesting enough (albeit ultimately neglected as a love triangle), as are scenes where he's repeatedly given orders to kill the enemy partisans, which makes him the most torn character on board, not wanting his true love to die with all the others, including a group of Jews freed during the prologue (along a river) after trying to only save the girl...

And then her saving him quickly following a surprise attack, led by Rod Taylor, whose tough mercenary named Marko seems to only let this woman who saved a Nazi live because... well, she's downright gorgeous...

As most of the picture has the duo traipsing alongside the fleeing Jewish herd while protecting them during bouts of gun-blasting and tank-roaring, explosion-riddled sequences that, despite the anemic budget, does actually look legitimate...

The kind of studio war flick that Tarantino's "14 Fists of McClusky" was supposed to be (it would make no sense if it were a cheap foreign-made throwaway, as shown on fake movie posters possibly created and/or approved by Sony Pictures, since Dalton's game-changing career choice has him eventually and quite reluctantly starring in Italian Spaghetti Westerns and action flicks, which he was obviously and even notably a completely stranger to), and far from the shoddy Yugo-production HELL RIVER actually was...

Even some of composer Vojislav Borisavljevic's original soundtrack plays during a scene where DiCaprio's Dalton takes a flame-thrower to a group of Nazis, all created for the fictional movie within the fictional movie taken from this actual one...

Which, while no classic, isn't a waste of time to catch a grainy yet watchable copy of streaming on Amazon Prime: the best moments include Taylor's Marko separated and alone, surviving behind-enemy-lines in various war-torn, Nazi occupied, blown-out towns...

One where he grew up, giving the legitimate dramatic actor a chance to prove he could balance pathos with bravado. So don't blink or you'll miss one of many important connected elements in Tarantino's ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD. Only HELL RIVER is far more than just a passing billboard or theater marquee. Oh and the end of the end-credits includes even more Adam West!