One of these days, I should write a post ranking movie titles - this Don Siegel joint is one of the best.
Hell is for Heroes is not just the title, it is a thesis and a statement. Like The Last Blitzkrieg, this movie is like a gritty fable on the dangers of the archetype of the rugged individualist.
A movie about a small group of soldiers trying to hold a line against a larger foe, Hell is for Heroes feels like a metaphor for low-budget filmmakers like the people behind this production.
Like the main characters, the filmmakers behind Hell is for Heroes are punching above their relative weight.
This is a tight, terse little war picture structured as a 'day in the life' of a small group of characters in a specific location.
The crisp black and white photography highlights the crags of the characters’ faces, the sweat and the dirt of exhaustion and combat. And there is a focus on sound design and silence which sustains the sense of a wider world, the tedium of the front, with sudden bursts of violence.
What is interesting about Hell is for Heroes in terms of its star is that the movie is ultimately anti-McQueen.
When he enters, it feels like a stereotypical McQueen role - a silent loner - and he lives up to that, spending the movie butting up against superiors and comrades alike.
While this is early in McQueen's career, the film feels like a reversal of expectations - at what seems to be the squad's lowest point, Reese takes charge and leads his squad on a disastrous attack that kills everyone else.
Following that failure, McQueen is shaky and verbal. When confronted by superiors, he steps in line. McQueen may have been here under contractual obligation but he is good, particularly this breakdown.
Director Don Siegel, a dab hand at different genres, handles proceedings with a steady unsentimental hand.
A solid mini-epic with a bleak, pyrrhic ending, Hell is for Heroes may not be as memorable as McQueen's appearance in The Great Escape, but it is a solid addition to the war genre.
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