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DVD Description
Special Features
- Original theatrical trailer
- Interactive menu screens and chapter selections
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Customer Reviews
Robert Aldrich offers a striking study in courage and cowardice, ambition and duty, leadership and indecision. Originally a stage play, the structure of the production does suffer in places from this. However, instead of the guns-blazing, flashy special effects of recent war movies, 'Attack' often feels claustrophobic, with men pinned into small rooms and glum cellars. While it sometimes feels a bit 'staged', at others, the sense of confined space means you can almost smell the sweat. There are echoes of Tennessee Williams here.
Shot in black and white, the film has a distinct noir quality. Indeed, one of its most attractive features is the photography, the use of light and dark to emphasise the loneliness and the isolation of the soldiers. Palance has a rugged face at the best of times, but his cragginess is emphasised by the noir lighting ... and by a little cameo scene where he strips to the waist to work bellows for a blacksmith. This is Hollywood realism, juxtaposing the muscular, masculine Palance against the podgy, effete, political Arnold.
The acting can become almost melodramatic at times - Arnold, in particular, is in danger of becoming a caricature. In the end, it's a method acting tour-de-force as Arnold comes unpicked at the seams.
A serious subject, sentimental in places, but the photography and direction often gives it an almost documentary feels ... and don't ever doubt that soldiers do get sentimental from time to time. For all its breathlessness and raw emotion, for all the bulging muscles and taut jaws, this is not a very physical - or physically energetic - movie. The tension is in the dialogue and the interaction between characters. This can be a bit dated in places, a bit stereotypical, but there is a quality in the writing and in the drama which is sadly missing in many better known war movies.
What is the moral of the 'play'? Courage? Retribution? Justice? I tend to feel it's actually dishonesty, corruption, perversion. Truth is the first casualty of war. 'Attack' confirms that warfare is ultimately about lies - convincing yourself that the enemy are sufficiently different from you to be worthy of hate, convincing yourself that you're not scared, convincing yourself that the war has a meaning and a purpose, convincing yourself that it will lead to a better future.
A film which aspiring screenwriters should study and deconstruct. 'Attack' has genuine qualities in both its drama, its acting, its direction, and its cinematography. It is a film which will engage.
Fantastic acting, sharp picture with good sound.
The futility and corruption of war shown with human weakness and virtue.
Probably the best second world war film ever made and one which goes way beyond the horror of war in its message.
in WWII.
Politically way ahead of it's time. Read more
However some anachronics are present.
Some of the German tanks don't look exactly as German tanks but covered up vehicles. Read more
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