User Reviews

Captain Jack Wosick (Luke Goss) has recently gone from hero to goat with the loss of his troop. He is given a second chance by Colonel Redding (Mickey Rourke). Jack is teamed up with Dolph Lundgren, a member of the French Foreign Legion and speaks English with a French accent....I think that was that was.

They lead a group called "War Pigs" who don't like officers or orders. They job is to take out one of Hitler's "wonder weapons." However before they do that, they must train on a bunch of stuff they won't use and a lot of stuff they should have learned at basic training. The idea of presenting this material should be to bring it back later on, instead of using it as mindless filler.

The characters were not that developed or colorful to be a dirty half dozen. The highlight of their antics is stealing chicken eggs. Boring dialogue, action, and climax.

Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity.

Concerning spoilers, I will only describe one small part of a scene at the end of the movie, which does not give away any of the storyline whatsoever to help describe one of the many flaws with this movie.

The bad:

1) The explosions were unrealistic and often seemed to be computer generated.

When will SFX guys ever simply go out to a real military range and simply video record actual hand grenade explosions and HE rounds from tanks? As usual, the explosions are far greater than in real life, and each grenade and shell always hits their mark 100% of the time on the first shot. Really? Come on, guys...get with it!

2) Whoever their technical adviser was didn't know their job at all.

The uniforms, helmets, weapons and dog tags were wrong for the WWII era.

Example: the dog tags in the movie were the more recent variety, of a rectangular shape, and obviously made from aluminum.

Also, at the end of the movie, we see the Lt. put TWO dog tags on the cross of his former soldier. All soldiers were instructed to put ONE dog tag in their boot back then, which would have stayed with the body for identification purposes.

The M1A1 Thompson automatic machine gun depicted in this movie was a later variety not manufactured in sufficient quantities nor used in WWII in France. It wouldn't have made it to the European theater of operation in time to be utilized for this (fictional) military action.

The big giveaway is the charging handle on the M1A1 in this movie is on the right side of the weapon, whereas, on the earlier M1928A1 and the later version M1 it is on the top of the weapon above the receiver.

As for the uniforms, the American helmets were wrong, some of the patches and insignia were wrong, and even some of the German uniforms were wrong. Too numerous to specify individual scenes, but holy cow! Somebody didn't research those aspects properly or the budget was so ridiculously low that the technical adviser didn't know and didn't care to get it right.

Don't even get me started on Mickey Rourke's very long hair, funky straw hat and sunglasses NOT from that era. Suffice it to say it would never have happened, regardless of how big a hero and how many medals he had previously accumulated. Period.

3) The script - just plain AWFUL! Stiff, forced, unnatural dialog that would never have happened in real life. Come on, writers, you couldn't watch interviews on the History channel with actual WWII vets or what? As for the plot, it was a worn-out, tired retread of numerous other, far better movies such as The Dirty Dozen and Saints and Soldiers. The plot was completely lame, predictable and simply boring as hell to watch.

4) The acting - terrible! Nothing can really save you from a bad script, but the acting was also forced, giving the viewer a feeling of that awkward silence in between deliveries at times, and when the collective cast chime in on group cheers / jeers etc., it seems all too well rehearsed and off the mark.

5) The action scenes - far too few; too much talking and not enough action. It doesn't always have to be about bombs and bullets, but for Pete's sake, give us something to keep us from falling to sleep.

The Good:

There was nothing good nor redeeming about this movie. It is a complete waste of time, and is painful to watch. You literally couldn't even pay me to watch it again, ever. Not for any amount of money.

Your time is better served watching Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, Saints and Soldiers (any of them), Big Red One or The Dirty Dozen. You will at least be satisfied with professional screenwriters at the top of their game, and excellent casts that really know how to act.

I think it's safe to say that Ryan Little has established himself firmly as the worst director of World War II films of the 21st century. One might think that even as bad as the second and third Saints and Soldiers films were, that he would somehow improve with time and experience, but he stubbornly refuses to do so.

Here's the plot of the film: The Germans have designed a long-range gun that has the capability of shelling "Paris, or even London." The weather is still warm, and the film takes place in the mountains, and if Paris is a potential target, then that means the film takes place after the Liberation of Paris, so the gun must be in the southern half of the border region of France and Germany. If London is a potential target as well, then this gun would have a range of at least 400 miles. The War Pigs are ordered on a recon mission to determine whether the gun exists. The gun is out in the open, and the film shows a flight of American fighter planes in the area, which would have easily spotted the gun, so why the men are required to look for it is a mystery. In "The Guns of Navarone" (1961) the guns were at least hidden from view from the air.

The stupidity begins with a squad of 101st Airborne Division troopers being led by Captain Jack Wosick (Luke Goss, sporting a goatee the whole movie) on a mission in a French or German forest. For those that don't know, a captain commands a company, which was 176 men in 1940s Airborne divisions. A squad (12 men) was commanded by a staff sergeant. This squad does indeed have a staff sergeant, as second-in-command, in the person of former UFC fighter (and champion?) Chuck Liddell, sporting his trademark horseshoe mustache, which wasn't in style until, I believe, the late 1960s, and would NEVER be allowed in the Army in any decade of the 20th century. Capt. Jack had misunderstood his orders and leads his squad into an ambush by six German soldiers with an MG-42. He kills the Germans, but not before they annihilate everyone in his squad except him. As a result, he is demoted, because in WWII orders were never misunderstood and officers never got a lot of men killed in a single firefight. Okay, except for the "demoted" part, that last sentence was entirely sarcastic. You need to understand that this particular group of 101st Airborne soldiers were all wearing regular infantry uniforms with M1941 jackets (or M1943; I can't tell the difference yet), instead of the distinctive uniforms that paratroopers wore to show off their elite status. Therefore, they were either not really airborne troopers, or they were very humble airborne troopers. The film never mentions which.

Ryan Little seems hellbent to prove to the world that he has no idea what U. S. Army uniforms were worn in the 1940s, or how people in general dressed or groomed themselves at all during that decade, or he just doesn't give a rat's rear-end. Case in point: Mickey Rourke as an Army colonel. That's a ridiculous premise from the get-go, but when he is sporting his ubiquitous long, uncombed hair hanging down past his jawline from underneath a beat-up white cowboy hat, along with what looks like a combination of pajamas and parts of an unbuttoned period Army jacket and salutes with his left hand, one has to wonder if the film had any direction at all. Maybe it was a matter of Little being intimidated by finally directing a couple of former Hollywood A-List actors and he didn't want to ask Rourke to at least comb his hair. Anyway, Werner Klemperer's, Colonel Klink in "Hogan's Heroes" was a more convincing colonel than Mickey Rourke.

As part of his demotion, 1st Lt. Jack and his goatee are assigned to command a group of five undisciplined soldiers, a smart-mouthed, constantly insubordinate sergeant, and a French captain (Dolph Lundgren), who obviously outranks the lieutenant and would never have been put under a lieutenant's command (the U. S. respects the rank of allied militaries, then and now).

The three or four days of "training" that the men are put through in preparation for the mission is too stupid to detail.

**SPOILER STARTS HERE** After training, the eight men commence their mission. Five of them capture a German tank and half-track and make quick work of the 20 or so SS soldiers that had been in possession of the vehicles (Dolph Lundgren was very impressive standing in the middle of the road picking off SS troops with a 12-gauge pump). Lt. Jack then finds them and reports that another SS patrol took prisoner the two guys that were with him. Subsequently, they infiltrate the German compound, rescue the prisoners, easily kill all of the two-dozen or so Germans, and against orders, destroy the gun (they were only supposed to see if it was there) with a single, perfectly aimed tank shell. No Americans died and Lt. Jack and his goatee then get their railroad tracks (captain's rank insignia) back from Col. Cowboy Hippie and his court martial is canceled. The end.

Bit of an avid fan of war movies. I wouldn't say I've seen them all, but I've seen most from 50s era onward. As movies depicting WW2 are quite rare I was kind of looking forward to War Pigs. Despite having read the reviews I thought, "it can't be as bad as that, can it?". It really was. Cliché driven throughout, from the disgraced officer story, to the rebellious unit, to the action sequence which had more holes in it than a pin cushion. I don't even want to remember the woefully lame "training" montage - which you might, like me, wonder if could have been entirely avoided if only the Sergeant wasn't such a moron.

The script and, perhaps more importantly the delivery of the script, proved to be the most painful part of the film. One of my pet hates is unlikely dialogue, and sadly War Pigs was littered with the most unlikely conversations with long pauses between delivery of each line.

On the whole, this isn't the worst film, but it's also a long way from being anything near adequate.

Disgraced Army Captain Jack Wosick is given the opportunity for redemption when he's asked to lead a unit known as the War Pigs on a secret mission to go behind enemy lines to capture a Nazi Weapon known as the V3, a cannon that would give them an advantage against the Allies.

With the help of Captain Hans Picault, a German Anti-Nazi serving with the French Foreign Legion, and Colonel AJ Redding, a battle hardened WW1 veteran, Jack must train his new squad to become a functioning unit........

I'll get straight to the point, this film is terrible. Beyond terrible as a matter of fact.

For straight to DVD action movies, I'm a big fan of Luke Goss and Dolph Lundgren, they know they are catering for their fans, so when they are headlining their own individual films, they have a certain amount of the stars personality about them, and it enables them to have a little more swagger than usual.

Stallone achieved ensemble swagger with his Expendables, but here, it's more like the intolerables than anything else. Believe me, when the Warburtons advert with Stallone is more entertaining after seeing it for the twentieth time, than this drivel, you know the cast have no motivation.

Goss does his best, but blimey, the script and narrative have a total abundance of anything intriguing to give him anything other than to shout and to fight a lot.

Lundgren shows up with the comedy accent of the year, it's truly on a level of Brad Pitt in The Devils Own bad.

And it winds up being a really poor version of the Dirty Dozen and Inglorious 'ahem'.

It's up there with the worst films of the year, which is a shame, because it had lots of potential.

On the plus side, if they do ever make another live action Popeye movie, Micky Rourke would save them thousands on Make Up and prosthetics.

Avoid......

Seriously? Who wrote this crap? I love war movies .. i let just about anything fly except this piece of garbage .. it was too much. Poor script, Shaky camera work, bad angles ... bad actor choices and the list goes on.

lets start ..

OK Mickey Rourke, he swaggers around like a bad John Wayne, or maybe he's just a new gay pride member, its hard to tell. He dresses in a tan cowboy hat with tan khaki's in the middle of France in 1945.. huh? he didn't even bother cutting his hair , he just tied it back and stuffed it down the back of his shirt... OK, a US colonel in 1945, thats a hippie .. umm, nope, that dog doesn't hunt for me. Gladly he's not all that important a character and you only have 5 or so minutes to put up with him.

Then you have Dolph Lungren .. umm, he has a hard time mumbling out English .. now he's supposed to be a French legionnaire? You gotta love a Swedish accent mixed with french accent speaking bad English. Its like a bad comedy, seriously.

Luke Goss .. OK .. your good to go .. actually plays a good character and almost believable. Again .. very poor script writing, not his fault.

The movies is scattered and not well linked together .. things get started in training and all of a sudden the commanders decide they are ready .. huh? that last guy just fell flat on his butt and got his butt whooped. And have any of the writers ever even seen a hand grenade go off? Sorry guys, if you throw a grenade into 2 feet of water while a guy hangs 4 feet above on a rope.. he's a pizza. Not falling off and laughing at the idiot who did it.

now for the mission .. 17 km behind enemy lines is the target ... so we're driving along perfect paved roads,in war torn France, no enemy anywhere to be seen until they reach the super secret target ...and then once again get their asses kicked.

After that it was all down hill ... Don't even get me started on the music score.

Sorry guys i wanted to like the movie ... i really did but, my apathy only goes so far. This is a straight to DVD bin collectible.

Other than a cool sounding name War Pigs has very little going for it. It is supposed to be a war action movie starring Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren and Luke Goss. What it is is a boring movie with a bad story and bad acting. And whilst I wasn't expecting a masterpiece I was at least expecting a bit of an effort. Alas that was too much to hope for. The problems are immediately apparent when a a soldier with a handlebar mustache and an officer with long hair are seen on screen. This makes the movie immediately ridiculous as no soldier or officer in 1944 would ever look like that. And it only goes downhill from there.

Then there is the story. A bunch of soldiers in Europe during WWII are tasked with going behind enemy lines and gathering information about a supposed super weapon developed by the Germans. Of course before they do that they will have to train as if fighting through Europe wasn't enough to keep them fit. And they will have to learn to draw and value communication. Then there are the standard clichés about the soldier who dislikes officers. And more training. And this nonsense eats up about half of the movie time until the action starts.

The cast: Mickey Rourke is in it for about 5 minutes and even that was too much frankly. He looks disinterested and out of place with long hair, sunglasses and a cowboy hat. Oh, and his character apparently survived being shot 12 times and stepping on a land mine. Dolph Lundgren smokes a pipe and attempts a French accent (very poorly). And the rest of the cast are uninteresting and clichéd as is most of the movie itself.

Overall, this should be avoided as it is a poor effort at making a war movie. A 2/10.

It seems many are quick to rip this movie a new anus. I'll be generous where others have not, though, despite the fact that this film is entirely unrealistic. I heard of it when it was being produced and have expected it to have a low budget and less than professional production team - that and I have a tolerant and appreciative mindset for amateurs seeking to make war-films, as I have always wanted to do that myself. I was impressed to see some more renowned actors present, albeit their performance was less than spectacular.

The movie was only an hour and a half, so I can't say it was a waste of time per se, but probably best it wasn't longer; though the build-up was a bit much for such a brief engagement. My biggest gripes really concern the unrealistic combat and poor nature of the characters and the uniforms/equipment. I won't nitpick too much since for the average viewer such anomalies are irrelevant, but I'm rather tired of these mid-20th century style one-sided propaganda-like films... How does a small squad, almost all of whom cannot speak German and are barely even trying to wear the German uniforms they stole manage to elude what appears to be at least an entire German company - SS at that, and escape without losing a single man? Ridiculous. No way in hell would German soldiers have been that inept.

This film is a buzz flick for the amateur viewer, not an actual war film. Don't expect more (perhaps even less) than what you'd see at a World War II reenactment!