5 pour l'enfer

The plot of Five for Hell isn't anything overly original. Those who have seen The Dirty Dozen or The Inglorious Bastards (the best of these over-the-top Italian war movies) will find things very familiar. A group of five American GIs are sent behind enemy lines to obtain a copy of Nazi battle plans stored in the safe of a heavily guarded villa. The GIs have help on the inside in the form of a double-agent named Helga (played by the ludicrously gorgeous Margaret Lee). Her main objective is to keep SS Col. Hans Mueller (the great Klaus Kinski) otherwise occupied. Meanwhile, Lt. Hoffman (Sartana himself - Gianni Garko) and his men make their way to the villa, open the safe, and battle their way back to safety. It's very simple, but nicely put together.

After reading reviews for Five for Hell on IMDb and around the internet, I think there are a bunch of people who have forgotten how to have fun watching a movie. That's what I did with Five for Hell - I had fun. Forget realism, forget history, forget the normal conventions of a good movie - this is classic Italian genre cinema. Just relax, don't take things too seriously, and go with it. A few familiar actors (Lee, Kinski, Garko, Sal Borgese, Luciano Rossi), a catchy soundtrack (I dare you to get that main theme out of your head), bad dubbing (I've gotten so used to this by now, it doesn't phase me), a gimmick or two for interest (exploding baseballs and a crazy trampoline), over-the-top action (the final 15 minutes are just one big machine gun fight), a really rotten bad guy to root against (Kinski at his evil best), and a beautiful woman (I think I've already expressed my feelings about Margaret Lee). Yep - Five for Hell's got it all.

Spaghetti/War film about a misfit team led by Gianni Garco who carry out a suicide mission behind enemy lines . A group of two-fisted soldiers formed by five experts are drafted to go on a near-suicide mission and attempt to take plans from a Nazi staff . ¨ Five for the Hell¨ is an entertaining film with Gianni Garco as tough officer along with the ordinary team of renegade soldiers of World War II whose mission is to steal the Nazi's secret attack plans -the Plan K on the Gustav Line- from a villa . Garco training a group of rebel and eclectic soldiers for a dangerous assault on a palace-château. In the hands of hardboiled director Gianfranco Parolini , alias Frank Kramer and a tough-as-leather cast , that's all the plot that's needed to make one rip-roaring wartime flick. Garco's mission is two-fold and in violent and cynical style : first turn his G.I.s into a valiant fighting unit and then turn them loose on a German villa located in Italia where they run into a brutal Nazi commander (Klaus Kinski) and being helped by a double agent (Margaret Lee). The diverse characters include a fun-loving Nick Jordan as acrobat , Sanson Burke as hunk man , Salvatore Borghese as safe-cracker , and Luciano Rossi as a lame-brained soldier specialist in explosives . The first half of the film allows the colorful cast of character actors to have their fun as they get their tails whipped into shape and develop shaky relationship with their leader . The final part is all action, as the brave commando wreak havoc and then run for their lives. Despite the fact that few of the "heroes" survive the bloodbath, the message here isn't that war is hell. Rather, it seems to be: war can be a hell of a good time... if you've got nothing to lose . The relentless assignment is set against strong training, risked adventures and hazardous feats . The dangerous mission includes a selected group formed by a motley and varied squadron played by usual of Italian B-series .This is a rugged WWII actioner concerning about an experienced officer , he's assigned by Military staff to train a dropout group of valiant G.I.s who get a chance to redeem themselves . They are a squadron of dispensable characters with no past and no future . Garco reprieves a bunch of soldiers , forges them into a two-fisted fighting unit and leads them on a deadly assignment into Nazi territory . The Privates are oddballs , rag-tag and undisciplined gang , under command a stiff Lieutenant and the team is hardly trained . In this film Garco and his motley band , are suppose to steal a plans located in a fortress where resides various Nazi officers . At the end they must participate in the suicidal mission behind the enemy lines , to wipe the German group by means of a violent assault over a strongly protected position .

Gianni Garco as Lt. Hoffman assumes the character of commando leader in this ordinary wartime movie regularly directed by Gianfranco Parolini. This moving film packs frantic thrills, perilous adventures , comedy , relentless feats , and buck-loads of explosive action and violence. The noisy action is uniformly well-made, especially deserving of mention the rip-roaring final scenes on the fortress , including some spectacular shootouts and bombing . Apart from the values of team spirit , cudgeled by Garco into his rebel group , the film is full of feats , suspense , and thrills . Rough Gianni Garco or Gary Hudson is good as leader of the motley pack together thwart the Nazi schemes, as well as the largely secondary cast with special mention to Salvatore Borghese , a habitual comic secondary in multiple Italian films . Atmospheric and functional musical score by Mancuso and mediocre cinematography in Eastmancolor filmed by Sandro Mancori . This is a wartime typical vehicle and into the ¨warlike commando genre¨ , in USA style which also belong the American classics as : ¨Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich) ¨ Where eagles dare(Brian G. Hutton) and Kelly's heroes(Hutton ), Tobruk (Arthur Hiller), Devil's Brigade (Andrew V McLagen) and many others .

The film is middling directed by Gianfranco Parolini or Frank Kramer. He began directing muscle-men epics as ¨Rocha¨, ¨The Macabeos¨ with Brad Harris and ¨The ten gladiators¨ with Dan Davis and Gianni Rizzo , Parolini's usual actor. After that he continued with ¨commissioner X¨ series with Tony Kendall , fantastic with ¨three supermen¨ and warlike movie as ¨5 per l'Inferno¨ with Gianni Garco (Sartana) and Nick Jordan. His first Western was ¨Johnny West¨ and later on , he directed the ¨Sabata trilogy¨ . It's followed by ¨ Return of Sabata¨ with similar artistic as Lee Van Cleff and Nick Jordan and customary technician team and finally ¨Indio Black ¨ with Yul Brynner . Rating : Average but amusing .

This Italian action/adventure set during the Second World War is essentially a riff on the then recent American smash hit The Dirty Dozen (1967). Its story is broadly similar where we have a specially selected group of five American soldiers being chosen to go behind enemy lines to steal some heavily guarded battle plans from a well-protected German stronghold. But the question you need to ask yourself is could that earlier Hollywood blockbuster have been improved with the inclusion of scenes involving its crack commandos jumping off mini trampolines, using baseballs as weaponry and indulging in extended tap dancing routines? Well, this is the film that essentially answers that particular question. I'm not going to give you the answer though as I think it's best a person decides for themselves on such matters.

This one features the go-to bad guy actor of the day, Klaus Kinski, in a role of a ruthless Nazi and the delectable Margaret Lee as a German double-agent. The five-man army, on the other hand, were decidedly less distinctive than this pair. The film itself is reasonably entertaining in a lots-of shooting kind of way but it is also very by-the-numbers too. The final assault on the German base drags somewhat until it becomes a machine gun fest. So I reckon it could have been a bit more interesting really but in fairness, like its title characters, it still gets the job done.

A cheap and fitfully amusing WW2 film from our Italian cousins. This one riffs on THE DIRTY DOZEN quite extensively in the predictable story of a behind-enemy-lines mission, in which a group of goofs and oddballs are sent to retrieve some vital documents from the Nazis. Will they succeed? Nobody seems to care really, but when the emphasis is on goofy action throughout then you won't either.

The film stars spaghetti western regular Gianni Garko as the protagonist; he plays your usual English dubbed hero, happily mowing down squads of Nazis and performing various feats of derring-do. His adversary is none other than Klaus Kinski, who must have worn more Nazi uniforms throughout his career than even Curt Jurgens and Anton Diffring; what a sigh of relief he must have breathed when he hung his up for the last time.

In a slightly bizarre spin on the usual formulaic action, a lot of comedic scenes involving trampoline action have been inserted into the mix. I'm familiar with this trampoline stuff from THE THREE FANTASTIC SUPERMEN film and all the similar ones that followed; unsurprisingly, director Gianfranco Parolini worked on both productions. However, it doesn't really fit into a WW2 movie as well as it did in a superhero film; the result is an odd concoction to say the least...

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