This movie is about on a par with the book it’s loosely based upon. Strangely enough, I only quite recently bought this very book, amongst several Hassel and Fleming (Bond) paperbacks. Or did I? I know I certainly have this one:
I’m actually quite enjoying this film. Even though it looks and feels rather low budget (stock footage is rather clumsily mixed in, occasionally). Sure, it’s farcical in its machismo, just like Hassel’s books. But it’s also fairly unique, in all honesty.
The main cast includes a bunch of quite familiar faces – e.g; Bruce Davison, David Patrick Kelly – who, I think, acquit themselves just fine. The big guns include David Carradine, as Col. Weisshagen, and Oliver Reed, in a brief cameo.
There are several things I think make it worth watching: the mere fact that a film of a Sven Hassel book exists, at all, for starters. Then there’s the portrayal of the action inside a tank, long before Fury.
The central mission of the film – as described above in most movie ‘blurbs’ – doesn’t get started until about an hour in. And that’s some time after a rather lame-ass segment focusing on a visit to a brothel. I guess that part is in keeping with the book/rest of the movie, but it feels a bit like a distraction/waste of time.
Wheels of Terror, filmed on location in Yugoslavia, is also unusual in how it makes use of Russian materiel, for both Russian and German armour, etc. which is mildly galling to a buff like me.
Ok, this is along way from being classic. Or even very good. But, perhaps rather strangely, it’s still worth watching. There are even a couple of half decent scenes, such as the attack on the munitions base, the encounter with beaucoup de Russkis in the woods.
There’s another gratuitous nudity interlude, when they stumble on a crowd of Russo-German ex-military non-combatants, that’s borderline surreal. But perhaps such things did occasionally occur?
Another thing that grates slightly, like the Russian tanks passed off as Krauts, is the unvarnished American accents of the actors. I think some rudimentary nod towards Germanic accents would’ve been nice.
The thing is, I stuck with it. And I enjoyed it. I’ve bailed out of loads of crap modern movies. This is some slightly older crap. But it’s nowhere near as crap as a lot of modern drivel.
So, this isn’t a glowing recommendation. But on the other hand, if you like WWII movies, and perhaps even more so Eastern Front films, and better yet those from a German perspective… well, in several senses of the phrase, it’s a no-brainer!
