directed by Brian G. Hutton
Losing actors and actresses is always very shocking to me. Perhaps it’s because in the films I watch those people never age. They are always young (or young-ish), fine and healthy. And then, one day we get horrible news and this cinema magic is slightly lost. Donald Sutherland has recently passed away at the age of 88. The actor was struggling with a long illness, which I had no idea about, so this loss moved me a lot. How come such a brilliant actor with an incredibly characteristic voice and great charisma has suddenly left us? I guess cinema is the only acceptable treatment right now, because thankfully, we may get back to Donald’s films and make him stay alive at least on our screens. Today, I’d like you to get back to 1970 and remind yourselves (or learn) about the character of Oddball in “Kelly’s Heroes”. Personally, I’m not a big fan of war films, but there are those few gems that I appreciate of this genre. In this one, we follow a group of American soldiers who learn about a bank full of gold bars and decide to rob it. Because why not? I mean, at first there’s only one soldier, Kelly (Clint Eastwood), but he cannot work alone so step by step he recruits the whole little crew. After all, the bank is storing about 14 thousand bars of gold, so even if they share the treasure, it’s still a lot per person. However, robbing the bank might not be the biggest issue here considering the fact that it’s situated behind German lines. So in order to even reach the storage, the soldiers have to be smart, sneaky and pretty crazy, let’s face it. Luckily, they have Oddball (Donald Sutherland) who’s the crew’s madman, often full of ridiculous ideas, but surely not lacking positivity. If you’re not into war films like me, I suggest you watching this one, especially now, after losing one of its actors. Except the fact that Donald played a memorable role there, it is a pretty entertaining production. I’d say it’s more of a comedy than an actual war drama, so many different cinephiles may actually like it. Fun fact, it’s kind of inspired by a true event. The screenplay was written basing on one story in Guinness World Records and the further investigation confirmed that such robbery had happened, even some stolen gold bars have been found. To make the background of the film even funnier – let me remind you that the story takes place during the WWII, Americans fighting against Germans in France, but the comedy was mainly filmed in… Yugoslavia (currently Croatia). Because why not? So if you’re looking for some good production to watch in tribute to Donald Sutherland, there’s no better option. His role of Oddball really shows what a wonderful actor he was. May he rest in peace, with no negative waves.
My rating: 7/10
S.
I have nothing to watch 