79
Metascore
10 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- Flynn gives one of his most convincing and powerful performances, and Raoul Walsh's direction is nothing less than excellent, with the great action director maintaining a harrowing pace, providing a wealth of interesting military detail, and delivering one thrilling scene after another.
- Objective, Burma, directed exceedingly well by Raoul Walsh from a first-class script by Ranald MacDougall and Lester Cole, is a stirring tribute to the sterling fighting men who helped to reopen Burma after the initial Japanese onslaught in the Pacific.
- 88Chicago TribuneMichael WilmingtonChicago TribuneMichael WilmingtonThe British hated it (because their soldiers took Burma), but this is a rock-solid Walsh actioner, with Errol Flynn, James Brown and Henry Hull. [06 Apr 2007, p.C7]
- It's a piece of almost instant history – and, as such, it gets the technical and cultural details of military life spot on.
- 80Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrThe film is long (142 minutes), claustrophobic, and intense, yet it works with elegance and rigor, like a philosophical problem stated and solved.
- 80Orlando SentinelOrlando SentinelObjective Burma!, which is directed strikingly by Raoul Walsh and has a documentary aura to it, is one of the finest and most realistic World War II dramas made during the war. [25 Oct 1992, p.61]
- 75The Seattle TimesJohn HartlThe Seattle TimesJohn HartlRaoul Walsh's lengthy, relatively gritty 1945 war movie stars Errol Flynn as the leader of a paratrooper group that goes after a key Japanese target. [02 Sep 1999]
- 70Time OutNigel FloydTime OutNigel FloydThe taut action, sparse dialogue, and faultless technique keep things moving so fast that there's no time to reflect upon the morality of war or the miraculous way in which Flynn and his men survive against such overwhelming odds.
- 70The Observer (UK)The Observer (UK)Although this is a wartime flagwaver and Flynn pulls out a grenade pin with his teeth, it is still a thoughtful and gritty depiction of platoon life and jungle warfare that uses actual combat footage shot by the US army signal corps. [07 Jul 2013, p.43]
- 60The film has considerable movement, particularly in the early reels, and the tactics of the paratroopers are authentic in their painstaking detail. However, while the scripters have in the main achieved their purpose of heightening the action, there are scenes in the final reels that could have been edited more closely.