Monster Island, on Shudder

The original Creature from the Black Lagoon was found in the Brazilian Amazon. That is a long way from a tiny South Pacific island, but the similarly tropical climate would logically be habitable for similar gill-man-like creatures. Based on the fin on its head, the monster in question looks like a creature cousin, but one of the Japanese soldiers recognizes it as a mythical Orang Ikan. Whatever it is, it is hard to kill and the circumstances of WWII do not help much either in director-screenwriter Mike Wiluan’s Monster Island (a.k.a. Orang Ikan), which premieres this Friday on Shudder.

Frankly, things cannot get much worse for Bronson, considering he is an Allied POW aboard a so-called Imperial Japanese “Hell Ship.” The captain decides to execute him for a failed escape attempt, along with Saito, a supposed “traitor.” However, while the officers focus on executions and torture, the U.S. Navy sinks the ship.

Ironically, Saito and Bronson survive, washing up a little speck of an island, chained at the ankles. The first thing they do is fight each other, but the monster coming out of the water convinces them to fight together. Despite the language barrier, they come to an understanding that continues to hold when a group of more violently militant Japanese soldiers reach their island paradise.

Monster island starts with a nifty concept, essentially fusing Creature from the Black Lagoon with Hell in the Pacific, which Wiluan and company execute quite well. It is a tight, tense film filled with peril. The design of the Orang Ikan is several steps up from the vintage Creature, but it looks familiar enough to pay homage.

Dean Fujioka and Callum Woodhouse (a world away from All Creatures Great and Small) are also both terrific as Saito and Bronson. They must convince viewers quickly that their characters can agree to an alliance, which they do, with great success. They also look believably haggard, beat-up, frightened, and generally wrung through the wringer. This is not a buddy-movie, it is an extreme survival film, and both thesps truly act like survivors.

Wiluan’s screenplay is not particularly complex, but it fully explores the implications of the wartime setting. Given the circumstances, this might be the most dangerous island yet, eclipsing Skull Island, because of Saito’s ex-comrades. Very highly recommended, Monster Island starts streaming Friday (7/25) on Shudder.

WWII: Operation Phoenix

Witold Pilecki heroically agreed to go undercover in the Auschwitz concentration camp to smuggle information back to the Polish Home Army. In recognition of his heroism, the Communist government executed him for espionage. Pilecki volunteered for his inconceivable mission. Major Murphy will order two recent Allied escapees to be re-captured, whether they like it or not, as part of a desperate plan to free a spy with critical intel. His team isn’t so “dirty,” but they have Dirty Dozen-like odds of survival in Wesley Mellott’s WWII: Operation Phoenix (a.k.a. Talons of the Phoenix), which releases tomorrow on VOD.

As a protégé of secretive Henry Tasquer Finn, former Continental socialite Katherine LaRue uncovered blockbuster information. The Gestapo burned through their entire network, but she temporarily escaped on a neutral freighter, the John Knight, until a U-boat caught up with her. The Allied brass needs her and her intel, which seems to involve nuclear secrets and shipments of heavy water, but their double-talk always keeps intentionally vague.

Regardless, Major Murphy must devise and execute an unlikely rescue operation, codenamed “Phoenix,” with the help of the all-woman Resistance field unit, who have sheltered the two escapees. To really complicate matters, Captain Rand has quickly fallen for one of his hosts, so he is less than thrilled to return to his former POW camp.

The limited resources really show throughout Phoenix, which is too bad, because it features some surprisingly colorful performances, especially among the Allies. Marcus Lawrence is oddly, but entertainingly flamboyant as Sgt. Major Colin Lackley. Screenwriter Darrin Archer hams it up as debauched Captain Jack Travis, their pilot, whose essentially chose the mission over the brig. Eric Supensky is also more than sufficiently hardnosed as Major Murphy.

Blitz, on Apple TV+

Most Americans cannot imagine what it was like in London during the Blitz and simply couldn’t handle living under such a constant threat of death. There is one nation that can identify with survivors of the Blitz—Israel, a nation that endured ceaseless suicide bombings well before October 7^th. To a degree, viewers get a taste of the crushing enormity of the National Socialists’ indiscriminate bombardment in director-screenwriter Steve McQueen’s Blitz, which premieres tomorrow on Apple TV+.

After watching the first ten minutes of Blitz, it is easy to understand why Rita Hanway secured a place for her son George aboard one of the last trains evacuating children to the countryside. However, he resents his single mother supposedly unloading him, so his parting words are terrible. Yet, he will probably better understand her reluctant decision after the events he will witness during the film.

Indeed, he feels rather guilty once the train steams away, so he soon hops off, to make his way back to her. Of course, the journey hopping rails hobo-style would be rather unsafe, even under ordinary circumstances. With the Luftwaffe carpet-bombing the East End, it is downright perilous. Even when he makes it back to London, the dangers are not over, especially when Albert’s Dickensian gang of corpse and bombsite looters get their claws into him.

Meanwhile, as Ms. Hanway pines for her son and his Caribbean immigrant father, whose life might have been ironically saved when the authorities deported him, she is drawn to the socialist preachings of the leader of a makeshift alternate bomb-shelter.

There are huge set-pieces in Blitz that are nothing short of brilliant. The opening prologue is truly jaw-dropping and a later sequence, showing Ken “Snakehips” Johnson’s final performance up until and past the point a German bomb falls on the swanky night where he was performing is probably even more devastating.

Weirdly, Blitz probably would have been stronger if McQueen had de-emphasized the narrative and concentrated on the viscerally tactile recreations of the devastation unleashed on London. There are images in this film that are truly unforgettable.

On the other hand, the mother-son melodrama comes across as forced and even rather contrived, in comparison. Plus, McQueen’s attempts at class-conscious social commentary ring with pettiness, given the wider circumstances. Frankly, in both cases, the dialogue sounds rather wooden.

Arguably, Blitz would have been a much better film if it talked less and showed more. Young Elliott Heffernan is very strong throughout the film, but McQueen’s decisions only truly let him shine in a handful of gem-like scenes. One standout example would be his late-night encounter with Ife, a sympathetic air-raid warden of West African descent, played with aching sensitivity by Benjamin Clementine. His relatively small supporting performance is absolutely beautiful and a highlight of Blitz.

The Story of G.I. Joe, Restored on BluRay

There was a time when G.I.’s expected war correspondents to be on their side. That was during WWII and maybe sometimes the Korean War. Nobody had more sympathy for the grunts in harm’s way than Pulitzer Prize winner Ernie Pyle. Sadly, Pyle was killed-in-action during the Battle of Okinawa, two months before the film based on his newspaper stories was released. We missed the humanity of his journalism in future wars, while Pyle missed out seeing his words done justice in William Wellman’s The Story of G.I. Joe, which has been freshly restored and released on DVD and BluRay, by Ignite Films.

When Pyle first embeds with Company C (18^th Infantry) in Tunisia, the GIs see an undersized middle-aged pencil-pusher, but they respect him when he proves he is tough enough to keep up with them. Subsequently, they immediately accept as a foxhole-mate when he rejoins them in Italy. Pyle remembers them all well, especially battle-hardened Lt. Bill Walker, who is now Capt. Walker, because he “outlived” the other Lieutenants.

Mired underneath an ancient monastery serving as a German observation post, Pyle serves as a sounding board, counselor, and too often a eulogist for Walker’s men. Sgt. Steve Warnicki constantly fiddles with a victrola, hoping to hear the special pressing his wife sent of his newborn son’s voice. Pvt. Dondaro is a Jersey ladies man, who conveniently speaks Italian. In contrast, Pvt. Robert “Wingless” Murphy will marry his sweetheart, “Red,” a Red Cross nurse (played by Wellman’s uncredited wife, Dorothy Coonan Wellman. However, this is war, so not everyone will live to see the end of the film, just like the real-life Pyle did not survive to cover the end of the war.

The Story of G.I. Joe was added to the National Film Registry and it earned Robert Mitchum’s only Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Capt. Walker, so it is hardly an unheralded film. Nevertheless, if you discover it by watching Ignite’s stunning restoration, you might rightfully wonder why rarely appears on all-time best lists.

Seriously, this is a masterwork. Although Wellman largely maintains an intimate squad-level focus, there are realistic battle scenes that still hold up post-Saving Private Ryan. It presents war with brutal honesty, making it clear every starring or supporting character could very easily fall in battle. The writing is consistently sharp and sometimes even hilarious, as when Pyle humors the men with ribald Hollywood gossip, which the sound of artillery “censors” for viewers.

Burgess Meredith is famous for classic The Twilight Zone episodes, the Rocky franchise, and dozens of other films, but Pyle might be the greatest screen performance of his entire career. He has the perfect look for the 43-year-old journalist, even though he was specially discharged from the Army expressly for this film. When he talks in-character about war, viewers believe he speaks from experience, which indeed was true for Burgess on a personal level.

Murder Company, Co-Starring Kelsey Grammer

Phonies talk tough, but the truth is no group killed more fascists than the American military. They were also fighting real, heavily armed fascists, who fought back. It was a brutal, bloody business—and this would be an appropriate day to thank them. A ragtag group of soldiers are in for a particularly rough mission in Shane Dax Taylor’s Murder Company, which releases in theaters and on demand and digital this Friday.

After an unusually unfortunate jump, most of Sgt. Southern’s company are dead or missing. However, he soon finds Pvt. Coolidge, a friend and comrade separated from a segregated unit and supposedly reassigned to Southern’s. Gen. Hastings lumps them together with several other strays for a dangerous assignment, under the command of Lt. Smith.

It is a two-parter. Rescue French resistance Daquin, who will then guide them to Major General Erik Ramsey, the National Socialist officer in charge of military transportation for all of Europe. The goal is to decapitate him before the D-Day landing. Yes, this is technically an assassination mission, but Daquin, who happens to be a crack shot with a sniper rifle, will handle the killing. Some of the men still have qualms, but viewers won’t after watching Ramsey’s skill as a torturer.

Purportedly, Jesse Mittelstadt’s screenplay is based on a “true story,” but that probably just means American did indeed fight Germany in WWII. It is hard to imagine Coolidge integrating a regular platoon and it is even tougher to figure how Haskel could have men holding a bridge for Americans coming from Normandy Bridge, but whatever. It is a WWII movie in which the Americans are the good guys. The bad guys are the Germans and they are particularly bad. In fact, they are part of the so-called “Murder Division,” so if Smith’s company bests them through covert action, they can take the “Murder” name for themselves.

Murder Company was definitely produced on a frugal budget, but it wisely leans into its grunginess, eschewing explosive spectacle. Most of the warfighting consists of close-quarters ambushes, sniper attacks, and fire fights at either the squad or platoon level. (Frankly, the Murder Company really isn’t big enough to be a company.) Regardless, the combat tends to be personal and very deadly.

Although Kelsey Grammer is best known for Fraser Crane, he has also portrayed several military officers. Arguably, the steely decisiveness of his performance here will make Haskell the kind of general many junior officers would wish they reported to. His grit matches that of the film in general and Joe Anderson and William Moseley, as Smith and Southern, in particular.

The Cold Blue, on TCM

The Memphis Belle is one of the most famous planes in both American and movie history, right up there with the Spirit of St. Louis and Air Force One. William Wyer captured the B-17’s flight crew in action in his classic The Memphis Belle documentary, which has since been preserved on the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. However, Wyler and his cameraman shot a lot more footage of B-17s than he included in his 45-minute doc. Fortunately, those outtakes survived in the National Archives, waiting to be rediscovered, restored, and incorporated into Erik Nelson’s The Cold Blue, which airs Sunday on TCM.

Frankly, there might be more interest for The Cold Blue now, thanks to the success of Masters of the Air and its companion doc, The Bloody Hundredth, than when it first released. The title is no joke. Both the sky and the sea in Wyler’s previously unseen footage appear eerily blue. This color film has that vintage 1940s look, much like that of the Oscar-winning Marines at Tarawa. The Flying Fortress could also be a brutally cold, sub-zero ride. In fact, several of the surviving vets providing context for Wyler’s film clips have stories of crewmates who lost hands or fingers to frostbite.

Even if the commercial timing was not ideal. It is a good thing Nelson made this film when he did, because the Army Air Force veterans were not getting any younger. Sadly, Gunnery Sergeant Paul Haedike, one of Nelson’s funniest and most colorful commentators just passed away this March. His contributions are priceless.

Thanks to him and the rest of the Airmen, viewers really get a sense of what it was like to serve on the Flying Fortress. The iconic plane emerges as a bit of a contradiction. In many ways, it was a death-trap, particularly with respects to the freezing temperatures crew experienced and the thin aluminum fuselage that offered no meaningful protection from enemy fire. Yet, they also praised the B-17 for being a tough old bird that could withstand tremendous damage and keep on flying.

Gold Run: Norway’s WWII Gold Convoy

In 1940, Norway’s Krone had real value, because they had a gold standard. Of course, that meant the national bank had a lot of gold in its vaults, to back up its currency. When the Germans invaded, stealing that gold was a high priority. Bureaucrats from the central bank and finance ministry worked with the military to deliver Norway’s gold to the Allies for safe keeping. They are losing the battle, but the Norwegians complete their heroic mission in Hallvard Braein’s Gold Run, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Fredrik Haslund is a boring mid-level political appointee, but that is why his boss trusts him. Unfortunately, that means he gets the call when it is time to ferry Norway’s gold reserves to a British destroyer waiting not so patiently along the coast. The minister knows Haslund will meticulously account for each and every gold bar. That is also why he so annoys Maj. Bjorn Sunde, the crusty commander of his military escort, which includes a celebrity, former communist poet Nordahl Grieg. (To his credit, Grieg broke with Stalin and the Party when they signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact). At least Haslund’s activist sister, Nini, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, will lend her skills as a scout and English translator to his make-shift convoy.

Haslund is not an obvious hero, but Ingvar Berge from the finance ministry inspires even less confidence. However, he will be reluctantly paired up with Odd Henry, a grizzled truck driver, who is man enough for the both of them. They will all have to get their acts together and work as a team, because Major Otto Stoltmann is hot on their trail.

Gold Run is a solidly respectable war drama that sometimes feels more like the streaming/TV movie that it started its life as in Scandinavia, representing Viaplay’s first original film. It is a great story, especially when it shows two undeniably heroic professions, soldiers and economists, working together at a time of national emergency. However, most characters are just deep enough to give them an internal crisis to exploit during critical turning points.

Although the battery of three screenwriters never really delve into Grieg’s politics (he was an honest anti-fascist, instead of a Party stooge), the depiction of the national bard is still far from hagiography. He often appears somewhat full of himself, but his “first reading” of his classic wartime poem is pretty stirring stuff.

Reveille

They were not exactly great hosts, but Germany and Italy better adhered to the Geneva Convention than their fellow Japanese Axis. Perhaps reciprocity was a reason—the fear that mistreatment of Allied POW’s would lead to mistreatment of their own. Such reciprocity will be a very real concern for one German patrol in director-screenwriter Michael Akkerman’s Reveille, which releases this Friday on-demand.

In the first act, Sgt. Jens Artur’s platoon capture a rag-tag group of American GI’s. Their treatment of the new POW’s is somewhat questionable, but probably not worth our outrage. Soon thereafter, Staff Sgt. Walter Brander, a WWI veteran called back into service, takes a small group out for some recon. This time, the Yanks have the drop on them.

Brander wanted to find the Americans and that is exactly what happens. It is a one-sided battle, with only Artur, Brander, and new rookie (who is as green as Kermit) are gravely wounded, but the rest are KIA. As he should according to the military code of conduct, “Sarge” prevents his redneck private from finishing them off. Instead, they take them prisoner. He duly sends for medics, but because they are pinned down by Germany artillery, the men instead must watch their German POWs slowly and painfully expire.

The inherent irony of the German POWs’ situation is ripe for drama. Unfortunately, Akkerman’s verbose screenplay literally talks around it. A talky film can be engrossing, sort of in the Playhouse 90 kind of tradition, but the dialogue in Reveille often feels tangential and unfocused.

Secret in the Mountain, on MHz Choice

The picturesque Austrian village of Altaussee probably boasts the only working mine that also features an art exhibit. There is a good reason for that. During WWII, the salt mine served as the secret hiding place for art looted by the National Socialist regime. You might remember scenes of its liberation in George Clooney’s The Monuments Men. Screenwriter-director tells the story from the perspective of the miners in Secret of the Mountain, which premieres Tuesday on MHz Choice.

Sepp Rottenbacher keeps himself to himself, but not his childhood friend, Franz Mittenjager, who is widely known to supply food to the band of deserters encamped in the mountains. That secret is a little too open for his own safety, but his equally rebellious wife Leni would not have it any other way. Slowly but surely, the villagers are also becoming more defiant, as they receive news of the Axis’s military defeats.

The mines might not seem like a good place to store art, but the temperature and humidity in the deeper shafts were almost perfect. Their depth also provided protection from Allied bombing runs. Unfortunately, Hitler decided to destroy the Altaussee mine and all the art stored within, as part of his scorched earth strategy. Blowing up the art would also obliterate the village’s primary source of employment. Of course, the fanatical National Socialists do not care, but the catastrophic prospect finally shakes Rottenbacher out of his apathy.

Even though Secret in the Mountain was produced for Austrian television, but it is a high-quality period production, with some surprisingly sophisticated characterization. Unlike many “reluctant heroes,” who cannot hardly wait for their awakening of conscience, Rottenbacher’s change of heart is a bitter, hard-fought process. Likewise, the miners’ “courtship” of SS Officer Ernst Kaltenbrunner to countermand the Altaussee’s standing orders for destruction gives the film an ironic twist. However, it is worth noting Zerhau’s screenplay largely lets the mining village off the hook for collaboration, while short-changing the efforts of the American Monuments Men to secure the imperiled art beneath Altaussee.

Come Out Fighting: The 761st Tank Battalion in Germany

Gen. George S. Patton was not exactly woke, but he was generally well-remembered by the black soldiers of the 761^st Tank Battalion who served under him. For most of the film, the so-called “Black Panthers” will be on their own, behind enemy lines. That wouldn’t be so bad, given the hostility of some of their fellow soldiers, were it not for the crazy German officer setting ambushes for them. However, a downed American pilot will be happy to tag a ride with them in Steven Luke’s Come Out Fighting, which releases Friday in theaters and on-demand.

Maj. Chase Anderson is the kind of commanding officer Lt. Robert Hayes can respect. Obviously, Anderson is cool, because he is played by Dolph Lundgren. Unfortunately, the captain between them is a racist trying to blame Hayes for his mistake. The captain is also an incompetent, who gets his convoy back to HQ hopelessly lost and quickly ambushed by the unhinged Captain Hans Schultz.

Hayes is the only survivor, trying to cross back over enemy lines by himself, until Lt. Frank Ross blunders into him. Ross survived a dogfight with the Luftwaffe’s newly redesigned fighter plane, so top brass would like to debrief him. That is how Maj. Anderson convinces Gen. Patton to sign off on the previously unsanctioned rescue mission Hayes’ sergeant, Sgt. A.J. “Red” McCarron was planning, with the help of Black Panthers tanker Sgt. Warren Crecy. Hayes’s platoon and the 761^st are still largely on their own, but they are highly motivated.

Weirdly, Come Out Fighting does not feature the most famous 761^st veteran, Jackie Robinson (or it’s the briefest of name-checks that you could easily miss). Regardless, the gritty, fatalistic attitude of most of the troops rings pretty true. However, there is the big credibility issue when it basically lets McCarron and Crecy get away with “taking their own initiative.” Chain of command is critically important. They do not take too kindly to it if the generals want your men one place, but you decide to move them someplace else, but hey, it’s a movie.

It also seems like the Germans never had a chance, since we have Michael Jai White and Lundgren in uniform. White definitely looks and acts like a leathery tough NCO. Lundgren is suitably commanding as Anderson, continuing to gracefully transition into less physical, but still ultra-manly action-support roles.

Freaks vs. the Reich

The National Socialists had two weird obsessions: purity and the occult. It therefore rather follows that a group of super-heroic circus freaks would be their nemeses. Yet, an increasingly unhinged Nazi pianist has a mad dream of harnessing their powers to save the regime. That sounds like an unlikely Hail Mary scheme, but he knows Germany’s defeat is likely from his drug-induced visions of the future in Gabriele Mainetti’s dark superhero fantasy Freaks vs. the Reich (a.k.a. Freaks Out), which releases today in theaters and on-demand.

Fulvio is the wolfman, Mario is the magnetic clown, Cencio is an albino with an Aquaman-like power over bugs, and Matilde harnesses the power of electricity. She is the real deal, not like Rooney Mara in the inferior Nightmare Alley remake. In fact, all their powers are real, but hers are potentially the most powerful. However, she has issues when it comes to using them to their fullest extent. Her conductivity also somewhat alienates her from humanity, since her touch is potentially fatal. Nevertheless, Cencio still carries a torch for her, which is also creepy, given their apparent age differences.

Nevertheless, the four circus freaks regularly dazzle audiences for old Israel’s traveling sideshow, until the war intervenes. The Germans have invaded their former Italian allies, but at this point of the war, it is not going well for either nation. Franz desperately wants to turn it around for the Reich, but he is probably lucky to be alive, considering he has six fingers on either hand, making him a freak himself. Through liberal ether-huffing, Franz has seen images of the future. As a result, he is convinced only Matilde’s powers can save the Reich.

This is probably the weirdest circus film since Alex de la Iglesia’s The Last Circus (a.k.a. A Sad Trumpet Ballad), which Freaks also resembles in tone. It is far more macabre than most superhero movies, but that is its strength, whereas its weakness is Mainetti’s inclination to excess, especially the two-hour-and-twenty-minute running time.

Be that as it may, Mainetti and co-screenwriter Nicola Guaglianone earn a lot of points for originality, particularly for their distinctive villain, Franz. He is a sinister psychopath, but it is easy to understand how living with his conspicuous “deformity” in German society helped warp him into the monster we see in the film. Those predisposed to object the film uses him to represent the physically different should keep in mind there is also a band of war-amputee partisans in the woods, waging guerilla attacks against the Germans.

Operation Seawolf, Starring Dolph Lundgren and Frank Grillo

By Presidential order, there were two U.S. Navy ships with majority African American crews during WWII, so the submarine chaser depicted in this film is not the total historical gaffe you might assume. The mission it is trying to foil is completely fictional, but not because the German U-boat corps would have had any issues targeting civilians. They just never made it this far in real-life. Time is running out for the Axis, but a strike on New York City could turn the tide of the war in Steven Luke’s Operation Seawolf, which releases Tuesday on DVD.

Captain Hans Kessler is a disillusioned old school officer, but even with his heavy drinking, he is the best man available for the last-ditch mission. However, it is hard for his new first officer to see it that way. Lt. Reinhart was demoted, to make way for Kessler. He is supposed to lead a wolfpack of U-boats close enough to the City to launch a V2 rocket attack from their decks, once they surface.

Fortunately, Commander Race Ingram knows their coming, so he will deploy the Tenth Fleet to stop them. For the first time ever, Capt. Samuel Gravely’s ship, based on the USS Mason (DE-529) will be part of the hunt. Luke fudges the historical record a little with that last part, but plenty of WWII films have taken greater dramatic license.

Dolph Lundgren gets to show more dramatic range than usual as Kessler. Indeed, he is perfectly cast as the commanding but world-weary (and super-blond) officer. On the other hand, Frank Grillo is grossly underutilized as Ingram, who basically spends the entire film in the war room, reading coded messages and barking orders. It wouldn’t really make sense for his character to come face-to-face with Kessler, but it is still disappointing Grillo and Lundgren appear in the same film, but never share a scene together.

Hiram A. Murray is similarly confined to the bridge of his ship playing Capt. Gravely. He also carries himself with a convincing military bearing, which rather makes sense, since he is a Marine Corp veteran. However, the sequences aboard Gravely’s Destroyer do not look as realistic as those within Kessler’s U-boat, which were shot inside the decommissioned and preserved USS Cod.

Battle for Saipan

Five Americans were awarded the Medal of Honor for their service at Saipan, all of them posthumously. A campaign was launched to upgrade Guy Gabaldon’s Navy Cross to the MOH, which still continues after his death. Such valor testifies to the battle’s high stakes and brutal conditions endured by tens of thousands of American soldiers, including my grandfather. The attack on an American field hospital in this film is fictional, but it is consistent with the Imperial army’s scorched earth “banzai” charge. A handful of soldiers and medical personnel must stand against several Japanese platoons in screenwriter-director Brandon Slagle’s Battle for Saipan, which opens tomorrow.

Like Gabaldon (who was raised in a Japanese-speaking family), Maj. William Porter speaks some of the local lingo, but it is never explained how he picked it up. Regardless, he overhears plans of an attack on the nearby U.S. Army field hospital while dodging a Japanese patrol. He finds a rag-tag facility lacking proper supplies for the many patients they have. Porter even brought another—the only other survivor of his scouting party. Vic, the lead surgeon, never expected to fight, but he completed basic like any other serviceman, so he and Porter will have to spearhead their defense.

There are a few reasonably colorful characters in the hospital, particularly, the demoted commanding officer, Gen. Jake Carroll, but the narrative still boils down to: the Japanese attack and the Americans defend. It is simple, unfussy, and pretty effective for what it is. This is hardly Hell to Eternity (based on Gabaldon’s story), but lead thesp Casper Van Dien bears some resemblance to Jeffrey Hunter.

Wolves of War: Another Final Mission Movie

Wars are like the old Knicks-Pacers games, in that they aren’t over until they are truly, officially over. Jack Wallace understands that only too well. Even though everyone knows WWII is down to its final days, he is still recruited for a potential-suicide mission in Giles Alderson’s Wolves of War, which releases tomorrow on VOD.

Wallace is the only parent his little girl has left, but he worries his success as a commando might have profoundly changed him as a person. Regardless, there is no guarantee he will survive this mission to see her again. Under the command of Captain Norwood, Wallace and his hodge-podge squad must parachute into no man’s land Bavaria, to rescue expat Professor Hopper from the National Socialist “Werewolves,” the fanatical remnants of the SS engaging in scorched earth guerilla warfare.

Supposedly, Hopper and his daughter Hannah were trapped in Germany when the war broke out, but he was never a regime sympathizer. Obviously, he is not a political science genius. As it happens, he is a physicist, who has developed a rival atomic bomb. If Wallace’s team can secure the professor and his notes, they can call in an airlift. Otherwise, it will become a carpet-bombing airstrike.

In some ways, Wolves of War is a throwback to old fashioned WWII films, but Wallace’s existential angst definitely feels contemporary. However, its stiff-upper-lip Britishness is appealing. The action is respectably gritty, but it lacks a big set-piece crescendo.

Burial: Stalin’s Macabre Trophy

The Soviets had a strange corpse fetish. To this day, you can still gawk at Lenin’s embalmed body in Red Square. Alas, poor Gorby probably won’t be getting that treatment. Stalin had something very ghoulishly different in mind for Hitler’s corpse. However, secretly ferrying it from Berlin to Moscow will be quite a tricky assignment for Brana Vasilyeva and her comrades in director-screenwriter Ben Parker’s Burial, which opens tomorrow in New York.

For a skinhead punk, rumors of Hitler’s body possibly surviving someplace were too tantalizing to ignore, even in 1991. However, when he breaks into elderly Vasilyeva’s London townhouse, she is the one who has the drop on him. When he comes to, handcuffed to the radiator, she decides to tell him the full story, because she knows it isn’t what he wants to hear.

Only Vasilyeva and her commander knew the exact nature of their mission. They are supposed to sneak Hitler’s body into the USSR clandestinely, but that means they will have to fight their way through the self-styled “Werewolves,” remnants of the National Socialist occupiers engaging into scorched-earth guerilla warfare. Unfortunately, when Vasilyeva’s commanding officer is killed in combat, the next senior officer is the cretinous Captain Ilyasov, who is more interested in rape and plunder than completing a mission he was not briefed on.

It is because of Soviet soldiers like him that the Poles are so hostile to the advancing Russians. Lukasz is a perfect case in point. As an ethnic German Pole, he suffered at the hands of both the Germans and the Soviets. However, Vasilyev manages to win his trust, but it does not extend very far beyond her and her trusted subordinate officer Tor Oleynik (so dubbed in honor of the Norse god, because of what he did to some Germans with a hammer).

Watching Burial, you have to feel sympathy for the Polish people. Time and again, Vasilyeva and Oleynik are confronted with the brutality of their own fellow Soviets and the resulting bitterness festering in the civilians, whose help they need. Parker never sugar-coats the brutality of either regime, openly suggesting something close to equivalency between them. Although this is a war film, it gets pretty intense and even spooky, given the way the “Werewolves” take their nickname to heart (and their weaponized use of hallucinogenic drugs).

Charlotte Vega makes a suitably quiet but steely action lead as Vasilyeva, but she is still no match for Harriet Walter, playing her hardnosed, butt-kicking senior citizen analog. (Reportedly, Dame Diana Rigg was originally cast in the role before her death, leaving some big shoes to fill, but Walter acquits herself impressively.)

Operation Mincemeat, on Netflix

Actor M.E. Clifton James helped pull off one of the most famous deceptions of WWII, by serving as Gen. Montgomery’s double. Glyndwr Michael was at the center of an even more audacious counter-intelligence operation, but he was already dead at the time. For the sake of all the young servicemen slated for the invasion of Sicily, the officers and staff at the British Admiralty’s intelligence division launch a desperate mission to convince German the landing will come in Greece. Their efforts are chronicled in John Madden’s Operation Mincemeat, which premieres today on Netflix.

The film starts at zero-hour, when the Mincemeat staff can do nothing more but prey, which they solemnly do. It is actually one of the most effective and powerful in media res film openings in recent years. A few short months earlier, Lt. Commander Ewen Montagu and Squadron Leader Charles Cholmondely were assigned to Operation Mincemeat, designed to plant false intelligence to draw Hitler’s forces away from Sicily. Although their commanding officer, Rear Admiral John Godfrey was skeptical, they were convinced they needed to tie their fabricated intel to an actual body, for the Germans to ever believe it. Godfrey’s aide, Ian Fleming happened to agree with them and ultimately so did Churchill.

Although the historically-based characters are rarely directly in harm’s way from the Axis, there is the tension of a ticking clock driving the narrative. It is also surprisingly compelling to watch the two officers and their civilian assistants become emotionally involved in the fictitious lives they create for the invented “Maj. William Martin” and his faithful girlfriend, like authors developing feelings for their fictional characters.

Despite the cerebral nature of the story, Madden builds a good deal of suspense. Ironically, a lot of it comes from the number of Spanish officials who tried to act in good conscience, in accordance with their ostensive neutrality. It took a lot of sly machinations on the part of the local British consul (nicely played by Alex Jennings) to appeal to their fascist inclinations.

On the other hand, there is a distracting minor subplot ginning up paranoia over suspicion Montagu’s brother Ivor was a Soviet spy, which he was indeed, but apparently only briefly and with little tangible results. The portrayal of Churchill is a bit of a caricature, but it also shows that he was nobody’s fool. However, the film does a great job conveying tactics, strategy, and the general wartime environment.

Hell Hath No Fury, Featuring Mandylor, Vandenberg, and Bernhardt

People forget Germany first occupied France was during WWI—that’s why the front line was in France. Those who collaborated the first time faced reprisals that they repaid with interest during the National Socialist occupation. Many in turn faced similar or worse humiliation after the Allied liberation, like Marie Dujardin, the former mistress of a high-ranking SS officer. Ironically, Dujardin was in fact a resistance mole, but she has nobody left to vouch for her. However, she has knowledge of a secret stash of gold that is definitely worth something in Jesse V. Johnson’s Hell Hath No Fury, which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

When we meet Dujardin, she is cooing romantically with the ruthless Von Bruckner. Yet, when their car is ambushed by the resistance, she claims to be on their side. He manages to take care of his would-be executioners, but she gets the drop on him. Or so she thought—those darned glancing face shots. She left him for dead, but she really left him facially scarred.

That leads to a nasty reunion when she leads three American GI’s and Major Maitland, their Kelly’s Heroes-style officer to the cemetery, where she tells them she hid Von Bruckner’s gold. He wants it too—and he is marching their way with all the SS troops still loyal to him.

HHNF is not exactly a love letter to the “Greatest Generation.” Technically, Dujardin is not exactly a stereotypical “woman scorned” either. However, Johnson, the prolific action director, stages some nifty battle sequences. Stuff gets blown-up and Germans get killed many satisfactory ways, but Johnson always keeps it all clean and legible on-screen.

He also has the benefit of a gritty, experienced cast, including Louis Mandylor, who certainly knows his way around a Johnson set (including the Debt Collector movies and maybe half a dozen others). Timothy V. Murphy is a real standout for the grizzled swagger and snarling attitude he brings as the working-class sergeant.

The Good Traitor: Representing Free Denmark

Ambassador Henrik Kauffmann hoped to be something like a Danish Henry Adams, representing his government-in-exile in DC. However, when the government failed to exile itself, he basically assumed that role—and it was a good thing he did. Kauffmann’s extraordinary diplomatic career is the focus of Christina Rosendahl’s The Good Traitor, which opens this Friday in theaters and on VOD.

The Hon. Kauffmann was a natural ambassador, because he and his wife Charlotte always enjoyed entertaining. Unlike many of his Foreign Service colleagues, Kauffmann also readily identified the looming National Socialist threat. He tried to leverage his well-heeled wife’s family connections to the Roosevelts, but FDR will not give him the assurances he is looking for.

Unfortunately, the German invasion happens sooner than even Kauffmann or his hawkish deputy Povl Bang-Jensen expected. In an even worse development, the Danish government remains in place to negotiate compliant terms for the occupation. Horrified by their collaboration, Kauffmann essentially declares his diplomatic mission the highest functioning branch of the free, independent Danish government. Several important embassies back him up, but he really needs Roosevelt to recognize him, especially when the compromised government proclaims him a traitor.

Kauffmann’s cowboy diplomacy makes for a ripping good yarn, which has the added advantage of being completely true. The chutzpah is awe-inspiring, but it was all for a just cause. Far less interesting is Kauffmann’s torch-carrying for his sister-in-law and his wife’s boozy, jealous resentment. Regardless, it is nice to see Bang-Jensen get his due as well. Frankly, Kauffmann’s colleague deserves a film of his own, focusing on his tenure at the UN, where he refused to reveal the names of Hungarian Revolution witnesses to his organization, to protect their relatives behind the Iron Curtain. He was found dead, "under mysterious circumstances,” shortly thereafter.

Shadow in the Cloud, from Roseanne Liang

Maybe you don't remember the part about the monster on the plane’s wing in Randall Jarrell classic poem, “Death of a Ball Turret Gunner,” but surely its implied in there someplace. Regardless, Maude Garrett will have to contend with exactly that, as well as a number of Japanese Zeroes, when she hitches a ride in the deadliest seat in a WWII B-17 Bomber for nearly the duration of Roseanne Liang’s Shadow in the Cloud, which releases in theaters and on VOD this Friday.

For some reason, Women’s Auxiliary Flight Officer Garrett is determined to hitch on ride with the crew of the “Fool’s Errand” making a supply run to New Zealand. Even more important than her is the top-secret cargo in her dispatch box. The sexist crew stash her in the ball turret and make demeaning sexual jokes over the open comms, but they stop laughing a little when she bullseyes a Zero that supposedly never would have flown out that far. However, they start dismissing her again when she claims to see a gremlin-like monster sabotaging the engine.

Max Landis and Liang (whose previous short film Do No Harm was the highlight of the 2017 Sundance) cleverly riff on the jokey WWII lore blaming gremlins for engine failure (they were sort of like the invisible “Not Me” in the old Family Circus comic strip). You could think of it as Richard Matheson’s Nightmare at 20,000 Feet adapted to a WWII setting, but Liang and Landis fully develop the premise and consistently raise the stakes.

Liang also deftly capitalizes on the confined space of the ball turret to create tension. In many respects, Shadow is like Steven Knight’s Locke, in which the car-bound Tom Hardy plays off numerous unseen voices over the phone. In this case, the voices and personas of the B-17 crew-members are not as clearly and distinctly established, but that sort of reinforces Garrett’s perspective of alienation from the men above her.

This is very inventive genre filmmaking, so we can forgive the over-the-top, unbelievable excesses of the centerpiece action scene. Of course, it also helps that the gremlin looks cool—and appropriately sinister. Unlike the various Twilight Zone adaptations of Matheson’s story, Liang doesn’t tease us with the gremlin. She gives us plenty of good looks at the nasty creature, who holds up to scrutiny, thanks to some nifty design and effects work.

Recon: Warfighting in Cassino, with Franco Nero

During WWII, the Italian campaign had its own special challenges. It was hard to tell friendlies from enemies, because Italy changed sides in 1943, but not every Fascist was on-board. That risk of ambushes was a constant fact of life for reconnaissance patrols. One sneak attack precipitates a tragic cycle of retribution, guilt, and angst in Robert Port’s adaptation of Richard Bausch’s novel Peace, retitled Recon, which has a special Fathom Events screening today, ahead of its theatrical release this Friday.

When a fanatical officer ambushes the unit, their sergeant remorselessly guns down his unarmed lover as well. The incident obviously bothers Corporal Marson, as well as the street-smart Private Asch. In contrast, country-poor Pvt. Joyner is more troubled by the extent Marson is troubled. Shortly thereafter, in what might be an act of reprisal, the Sergeant dispatches them on a dangerous recon mission, up the mountain in search of the hiding German army.

They have either a stroke of good or bad luck when they encounter Angelo, a grizzled old villager, who agrees to lead them to the Germans. However, none of the GIs trusts the Italian, including Marson, but he insists they follow him anyway.

Recon is definitely a revisionist World War II film, which makes its release timed around Veteran’s Day a little awkward. Nevertheless, it is an earnest film of decent quality that should never seriously disparage anyone’s opinion of WWII-era veterans. Both intellectually and emotionally, we should all accept the fact war forces people to do terrible things. The fact that the “Greatest Generation” survived the sort of circumstances depicted in Recon to become productive citizens is one of the reasons they were so great.

Arguably, the Chris Brochu and Sam Keeley, as Asch and Joyner, make that point quite dramatically with their memorable performances. The ill-will between the two enlisted men runs so strong, they are often on the brink of fisticuffs, yet when tragedy strikes, their antagonism is jettisoned. Consequently, their late scenes together are indeed quite poignant.