Act of Honor - L'unité War Pigs

A Dirty Dozen kind of story. Some heroics, happy ending. I would have loved this film when I was ten years old. For a war film, it's about average.

Action-filled movie set at end WWII , it follows the reckless adventures of a valiant platoon , some courageous soldiers during WWII in France to locate a giant tank gun . On D-Day , the 6th of June 1944 , Western allied forces landed in Nazi-occupied France on a quest to liberate Europe . In September , they stood at the heavily defended German border , ready to launch an all-out assault . President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill believed in a victory by Christmas . But for the US Infantry , each day was about a simple staying alive . Colonel AJ Redding : Mickey Rourke , a battle hardened WW1 veteran assigns a risked mission to Lieutenant Wosick : Luke Goss , who is leader of the motley pack together thwart the Nazi schemes .With the help of Captain Hans Picault : Dolph Lundgren , a German Anti-Nazi serving with the French Foreign Legion execute the perilous assignment . That's why the brave army lieutenant takes offbeat soldiers on his next , on a dangerous mission to explode a German-built cannon before it's used against the Allied forces that could have changed the course of WWII . Nothing's ever easy. Victory is the only option .

Luke Goss assumes the character of commando leader of a rag-tag unit in this ordinary wartime movie middlingly directed by Ryan Little .This is a regularly conceived WWII with action filled , brief studio character , drama and exciting battles , but nothing special . Medium budget European war film that packs frantic thrills , perilous adventures , 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 in which the motley group is really besieged , including some spectacular shootouts and bombing . 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 , as the two-fisted Lieutenant must train, lead and earn the respect of his new squad to become a functioning reconnaissance unit . The final part is all action , as the brave commando wreak havoc , exterminating Nazis by any means necessary and then run for their lives . Apart from the values of team spirit , cudgeled by Luke Goss into his misfit group , the film is full of feats , suspense , and thrills . Luke Goss gives an acceptable acting as a disgraced World War 2 Army Lieutenant called Jack Wosick who is given the opportunity for redemption when asked to lead a rag-tag unit of misfits . He along with Dolph Lundgren dominate this adventure war with only one thirst : to carry out the nail-biting as well as puzzling mission . It tells the dramatic story of a bunch of Allied soldiers trapped behind enemy lines and to execute their mission . It has action , crossfire , thrills , warfare feats and dramatic situations . This is a war movie in which predominates the stories and situations of the protagonists on the war itself made , so although there are moments of action and struggle there are also thought-provoking events about the worried lieutenant who feels guilty of death a friend . The story is a typical strategic military adventure where they have to complete an assignment , which is used to move the story filled with interesting ideas and thoughtful dialogues . The good thing is its ambiance and photography, with excellent landscapes and dense atmospheres of war and violence.This is a wartime typical vehicle and into the ¨warlike commando sub-genre¨ in 60s and 70s style , which also belong the American classics as : ¨Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich)¨ ,¨ Where eagles dare (Brian G. Hutton)¨ , ¨Kelly's heroes (Hutton)¨, ¨Tobruk (Arthur Hiller)¨ , ¨Devil's Brigade (Andrew V McLagen)¨ and many others.

The motion picture was regularly directed by Ryan Little . Ryan was presented with a Student Emmy at the 1999 Academy of Television Arts & Science College Television Awards, for "Best Dramatic Film": The Last Good War . Little has directed a few but decent movies such as ¨Outlaw Trail: The Treasure of Butch Cassidy¨ , ¨House of fears¨ , ¨Forever strong¨, ¨Age of the dragons¨ and ¨"Saints and Soldiers : Airbone creed" that is the sequel to the award-winning ¨Saints and soldiers¨ and the third part titled ¨Saints and soldiers : the void¨ .

Let's face it - this movie is terrible. Crappy post production battle effects, terrible dialogue and clichéd characters. The pace is pretty slow and the story is obvious. Also I hadn't realized how messed up Mickey Rourke's face has gotten.

But this movie is fully aware of what it is.

Dolph Lundgren with a French accent? Hilarious. Even he finds it funny in his acting.

If you put aside your armchair IMDb film critic career and suspend your disbelief - this is not that bad a watch - along the lines of Dirty Dozen, or even Inglorious Basterds (okay it's no Tarantino movie but hey, in spirit) I actually enjoyed the movie as it went on. Also aside from some of the post production battle elements, they do a good job of using language, uniforms and some WWII era vehicles to lend a superficial air of authenticity.

But hey, don't listen to me or anyone else - watch it for yourself. Dolph speaking with a French accent is worth it alone.

Having lived through those trying times, I can relate. I felt that, overall, this film was pretty accurate in the way the characters looked, dressed and acted. My wife criticized the constant smoking, but I told her that's what men did in those days, especially when the cigarettes were free. The language too, I felt was much more realistic than in many WWII films. In those days, even foul-mouthed tough guys seldom muttered the word "fuck" or "fucking". Mickey Rourke was the only guy in the film who did that a few times, but being Mickey Rourke, I guess he can get away with that. However, his use of "disrespect" was unforgivable. I'm not sure when that popular word came into use but it sure wasn't back in the '40s or '50s, etc. More like the '90s, and more like gang talk, not military jargon. Of course, as with any film, there have to be contrivances to make things work, and that's okay. Here, a group of misfits dubbed the War Pigs (think half a Dirty Dozen) are sent in on a mission to destroy the infamous V3 cannon. In reality, there were several and I really don't believe any were actually destroyed by allied armies. Rather, the Normandy invasion caused the Nazis to remove a couple, others were dismantled as encroaching allied troops caused the Nazis to break the guns down themselves to avoid having them captured by the Allies. But these guys did a pretty good job and held their own. Overall I enjoyed this a lot more than many war stories since it wasn't filled with as much blood and guts as are so many. It focused more on the men's training, their actual mission and their relationships. I would swear however, than when the leader of the mission was chosen, he was a captain. Two minutes later and up until the end of the film he was a lieutenant. Maybe I missed something. Someone else complained about Dolph Lundgren's French accent. (a) he has become a really formidable actor in his old age, given the chance to do something besides play a Universal Soldier type, and (b) I believe, in the film, he was actually German (probably from Alsace which has an identity problem), who had been conscripted by the Nazis. He slipped off and joined La Légion Etrangère and came back to fight for right and justice and all that good stuff. Overall, I thought this was a pretty good war flick. I'm not normally a war movie lover. I never saw Inglorious, etc. but my wife picked this up at a Red Box, and we could have done a lot worse, as in "Knock Knock". Oy!

Let's be honest, you saw the cast or description and thought this would be an action packed war movie. Sad to say, War Pigs is a slow trudging march of bad acting and unappealing script. Even the supposed big names like Mickey Rourke and Chuck Liddell only appear briefly and what little action it has is done without finesse.

Story follows Dolph Lundgren and Luke Goss as they assemble rag tag squad to overcome Nazi advances. This is practically the whole movie, they recruit some people, train them while creating bond of brotherhood. It may sound good if it had better material, yet the plot is barren and tedious. Be it may the actors or dialogues, neither are interesting.

War movie is tricky, it inherently has some expectations and emotions involved. Many movies with better cast and production have mixed result, War Pigs have none the polished delivery nor the gritty nature to pull off this kind of scale. It's simply a few men bantering for an hour and half. The subject may have been engaging, but the presentation offers barely any battle of wit or actual battle at all.

If the slow pace hasn't deterred the audience, the flimsy action would. With the leading action stars, the movie could have done at least action sequences right, instead it only produces a very amateurish effort. The camera lacks focus and gun fight doesn't even look remotely real. It probably wouldn't help much since the cumulative action is probably only ten minutes or less.

War Pigs certainly doesn't have the depth to present cerebral war theme, it lacks the production to capitalize on the action oriented cast and it's far from authentic to appeal to military fans. It only gives a sense of desolation and tediousness for the audience.