Film

Kelly's Heroes

Name: Kelly's Heroes
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, War
Released: 1970
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Don Rickles, Carroll O'Connor

Kelly's Heroes is a war movie that mostly forgets it's supposed to be about the war. A platoon of scroungers goes AWOL to loot Nazi gold instead of liberating France, and the film settles into a loose, sun-baked hangout groove — Eastwood cool as ever, Sutherland floating through on tank treads like a beatnik who wandered into 1944. Comedy first, combat second.

TMDb rating

7.4

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Soldiers chasing stolen loot instead of glory, this time in the first Gulf War, mixing dark comedy with a real moral gut-punch about what soldiers owe the people whose war they're fighting in.

But The satire has teeth Kelly's Heroes never bares — it turns genuinely upsetting in the back half, so don't expect the same easy, cheerful ride.

Inglourious Basterds2009

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But The violence is far more graphic and stylised, and the tone swings from talky suspense to cartoonish gore in a way that's nothing like Kelly's Heroes' amiable shuffle.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Ocean's Eleven1960no page yet

Both films swap stakes for style: a crew of charming scoundrels treats a dangerous job like a lark, prioritising cool over consequence. Sutherland's hippie tank commander and Sinatra's boozy ringleader are cousins in the same lineage of men who refuse to take the mission seriously.

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But There's no war-movie tension at all, the pacing is baggier than modern heists, and it exists mostly to watch famous friends enjoy each other's company on camera.