Mission: Improbable
Written: Jan 09 '01 (Updated Sep 22 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great entertainment
Cons: Incredible--and so what?
The Bottom Line: Great movie, great fun.
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| buffoonery's Full Review: Guns of Navarone |
“The Guns of Navarone” is one of those great war movies in the vein of “Where Eagles Dare” and “The Dirty Dozen”: a small, highly skilled, and intrepid team of Allied commandos plunge off into the dark recesses of the Third Reich to accomplish a secret mission upon which rests the success of the war effort. So what if the plot has the consistency of a cobweb? All that matters is that we get action, great acting, and the good guys win.
“The Guns of Navarone” delivers all of the above, in spades.
The plot is simple: 2,000 British soldiers are trapped on a Greek island. They are about to be destroyed by undescribed German forces—naval, air, ground? We don’t know, and that’s a good thing, given that the Germans had neither air nor ground superiority in the Mediterranean at this time. The important thing is that bad things will happen if something doesn’t get done.
Now, it’s almost impossible for the Royal Navy to swoop in and pull these guys off the beach a la the Miracle at Dunkirk: the only sea channel lending access to the island is guarded by two huge German naval guns that are buried in a cliff cavern and virtually impervious to naval and air bombardment. Skeptics might ask: how did those guns get there? How much money was spent getting them there? Why did they get there? Did the Germans have a crystal ball so they could foretell that sometime in the future some Brits would be trapped there?
No matter. A crack team is assembled to land on Navarone, infiltrate the German defenses, and blow up the guns because, come hell or high water, six British destroyers are going to sail down the passage and pull the guys off the beaches, which begs another interesting question: if the Brits are so worried about their guys getting pulverized, why aren’t they worried about their ships getting plastered while they stand dead still in broad daylight in seas over which the enemy has air superiority?
The key to enjoying this movie, of course, is to stop asking stupid questions and just enjoys the ride. If you can put up with the sound of space ship engines in a vacuum a la “Star Wars”, you can put up with Mission Improbable in the Guns of Navarone.
Notional command of your plucky team is held by Anthony Quayle, a British major who has done this sort of thing before. Expert assistance is provided by Gregory Peck, who has shed his Atticus Finch persona and reverted back to his chip-on-the-shoulder roles in “Twelve O’Clock High” and “Pork Chop Hill”. Peck is a mountain-climber who is not really interested in this operation, but hey, he’s a professional and he’s got to “get the job done”. Greek infantry officer and partisan Anthony Quinn is Peck’s old don’t-know-if-I-hate-him-or-love him pal. Stanley Blocker (“Zulu”) and James Darren (“Time Tunnel”) are the security guys in red shirts. All of these deliver amusing and solid performances.
But the thespian highlight is David Niven, who brings his Oxbridge (he really went to Sandhurst, but what’s the difference) and Mayfair arrogance to the table as a university don turned demolitions expert. His snootiness combined with some great lines (“Be a pal, be a father to your men” “Pull the trigger, close your eyes, and think of England”) simply steals the show.
Anyway, after some bumps, the team gets assembled and off they go. There’s a nice battle when they shoot up a German E-boat, and then the team hits the beach—and the mountain cliff they have to climb where Quayle unfortunately breaks his leg. They meet up with some partisans (who include a traitor), and then go dodging about the island going in and out of trouble until they are captured. Naturally, they escape, but by now Quayle is suffering from gangrene and has to be left in German hands.
Peck, however, relying on good old American know-how and duplicity, has lied to Quayle, telling him that plans have been changed and there will be an invasion on Navarone. (This leads to a great stiff-upper-lip confrontation between Niven and Peck just before the third act.) A drugged Quayle tells the Germans the new plan, and they strip the guns’ defenses to resist the anticipated attack. The team, of course, uses this opportunity to shoot up the town and blow the guns.
This begs another interesting question. Typically, an amphibious invasion force can be detected by sea or air a long time before it gets to the beach—especially if it has to sail across half the Mediterranean. So why do the Germans just run off nilly-willy without bothering to do some scouting?
Why? Because it’s a movie, and how else would the good guys win, anyway? Listen to me: put your mind in neutral, crank up the volume, and just enjoy one of the great all-time war thrillers. The direction is competent, the acting top notch, the script solid, and the entertainment non-stop. It’s one of the best war thrillers of all-time and there’s no cursing so you can watch it with your kids (mine LOVE this).
They don’t make movies like this anymore.
Here are more of my military history and general history reviews, plus some war movie reviews and other stuff:
Andrew Roberts History of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900
Fuchida Midway, The Battle That Doomed Japan
Lisle Rose Power At Sea 1919-1945 (WWII Naval)
Arthur Ferrill: The Fall of the Roman Empire: The Miltary Explanation
Valerio Manfredi The Last Legion (novel of Rome, movie to be released in late 2007, no relation to the guy killed in Stalag 17)
Philip Matyszak The Enemies of Rome
Battle Stations for XBOX (WWII Naval game)
Axis and Allies D-Day (board game)
Norman Cantor The Civilization of the Middle Ages
What If? (counterfactual military history)
David Glantz When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler
Winston Groom 1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls
Sink the Bismarck! (movie)
R.J. Overy Why the Allies Won
Alan Schom The Eagle and the Rising Sun (superb!)
W.E.B. Griffin Retreat, Hell!
Windtalkers (movie)
Pearl Harbor (movie)
The Arc de Triomphe (travel)
W.E.B. Griffin The Fighting Agents (funny review!)
Gladiator (movie)
The Guns of Navarone (movie)
Bernard Cornwell Sharpe's Triumph
Divided Waters: The Naval History of the Civil War
Howard Zinn A People's History of the United States (great read!)
Williamson Murray A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War
Carlos D'Este Patton: A Genius for War
David Landes The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
Hitler's Last Gamble: The Battle of the Bulge (superb!)
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Saving Private Ryan
Mr. Roberts (movie)
The Road Warrior
London Military Sites (travel)
The Dirty Dozen
Excalibur
Independence Day
Starship Troopers
John Keegan The First World War
Battle of teh Bulge (movie)
W.E.B. Griffin Secret Honor
Tora! Tora! Tora!
Midway
Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel
Kelly's Heroes
Recommended:
Yes
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