¨Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission¨ is an average follow-up with Telly Savalas as tough officer replacing Lee Marvin and the ordinary team of renegade soldiers of World War II . Telly Savalas training a group of rebel and misfit soldiers for a dangerous assault on a railway locomotive , the Orient Express . This is a rugged WWII actioner concerning about an experienced officer , Major Wright , he's assigned by Military staff (Ernest Borgnine who acted in the original and all the sequels)) to train a dropout group of murderers , criminals and rapists who get a chance to redeem themselves . They are a bunch of dispensable characters with no past and no future . Savalas reprieves a bunch of ¨Death Row¨ inmates , forges them into a two-fisted fighting unit and leads them on a deadly assignment into Nazi territory , but there is a traitor in the team .The prisoners are oddballs , rag-tag and undisciplined gang (a large cast formed by Erik Strada , Mancini, Ernie Hudson , Ricardo Yniguez ), under command a sergeant (Jeff Conaway) and a lieutenant (Heather Thomas). The team is hardly trained by the Major Whright . In this film Savalas and his motley band , the Dirty Dozen, are suppose to destroy and avoid the constitution of the IV Reich against the Allies . When they arrive in Yugoslavia are helped by the resistance fighters . At the end they must participate in the suicidal mission behind the enemy lines , to wipe a German train , number 420, going to Istambul by means of an assault over a strongly protected vehicle.
Savalas as Maj. Wright assumes the character of the leader of the Dirty Dozen from Lee Marvin in the classic directed by Robert Aldrich and based on the characters created by T.M. Nathanson , being scripted by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller. This moving film packs frantic thrills, perilous adventures , relentless feats , and buck-loads of explosive action and violence. The noisy action is uniformly regularly-made, especially deserving of mention the rip-roaring final scenes on the train , including a spectacular crashing . Apart from the values of team spirit , cudgeled by Savalas into his rebel group , the film is full of feats , suspense , and thrills . Rough Telly Savallas is good as leader of the motley pack together thwart the Nazi schemes, as well as the largely secondary cast with special mention to Ernie Hudson. Atmospheric and martial musical score by John Cavacas and appropriate cinematography filmed in Zagreb, Croatia . This is is a wartime typical vehicle and into the ¨warlike commando genre¨ , which also belong : Where eagles dare(Brian G. Hutton) and Kelly's heroes(Hutton ), Tobruk (Arthur Hiller), Devil's Brigade (Andrew V McLagen) and many others .
The exciting , original and Box-Office hit ,¨Dirty dozen¨ with star-studded as Marvin , Robert Ryan , Clint Walker , Jim Brown was followed by various sequels , a trio of inferior Telefilms (1985 , 87 , 88) as ¨Dirty Dozen II: The next mission ¨ by Andrew V McLagen with Lee Marvin and Richard Jaeckel, Borgnine , Larry Wilcox and Wolf Kahler , ¨Dirty Dozen III : Deadly mission¨ by Lee H Katzin and ¨Dirty Dozen : Fatal mission¨ also by Lee H Katzin ; both of them shot at the same time with similar actors , director , musician , John Cavacas, and cameraman , Tomislav Pinter , being filmed in Croacia.
