Anzio

Anzio reminds me of being a junior in high school: I sort of knew what I wanted to do with my life, but I sort of didn't.  I was at a crossroads, between being a teenager and being... an older teenager.  Anzio is a lot like that.  On the one hand, it wants to be a grand, epic war movie (sort of like the earlier Sands of Iwo Jima or The Longest Day or the later A Bridge Too Far and Saving Private Ryan), but seems like a smaller film (like Beach Red or The Big Red One).  In most respects, it is a pretty conventional film for its era (it was released in 1968), but seems to be slightly more liberal/anti-war than other films (again, it came out in 1968, at the height of American involvement in the Vietnam War), to the extent that it is more like the rather unconventional The Dirty Dozen (released the year before) than the very conventional The Green Berets (released the same year as Anzio).  The story is simple enough: during WWII, a large force of U.S. Army Rangers advancing towards Rome are wiped out and captured during the Battle of Cisterna, leaving only about half a dozen surviving, free men, including war correspondent Dick Ennis (Robert Mitchum).  After the battle, the men must try to make it back to Allied lines safely.  The acting here is reasonable (especially from Peter Falk), and the dialogue seems OK.  The film can be a little weird at times (while many men are shot during the course of the movie, there is no blood - except for one shooting, which results in a fairly jarring spray of red from the wound).  The color palette used for the film is refreshing - instead of the dull colors used in some war films, we get bright, vivid colors.

While by no means a bad movie, Anzio seems a little shabby.  This is one of the few movies for which a remake seems like a pretty good idea.

Rating: 69/100