Suicide Commandos (1968) starring Aldo Ray, Tano Cimarosa, Ugo Fangareggi, Luis Dávila directed by Camillo Bazzoni Movie Review

Suicide Commandos (1968)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Aldo Ray in Suicide Commandos (1968)

The Thick Flak Threat

The D-Day invasion is in danger as the Germans have created a secret airfield for rapid launch of their planes and the allies have been unable to bomb it as the Germans fill the air with thick flak. The situation calls for a special mission, a suicide mission and so French commando Sgt. Cloadec (Aldo Ray) is detailed with picking a group of 4 misfit commandos and training them to sneak behind enemy lines to destroy the German airfield. But the mission is anything but straight forwards as things start to go wrong the minute they jump out of the plane.

As a kid I loved "The Dirty Dozen" to the point I drove my family mad as I would watch every time it appeared on the TV schedule but it wasn't until many years later that I discovered how many similar movies there were and not all were as good. "Suicide Commandos" is one of those similar movies, an Italian-Spanish movie from the 60s which feels like an imitation made on a budget which means less characters, weaker camera work and poor special effects but to make up for this an attempt at more humour. It doesn't really work although if you stick with it you find yourself being entertained in a bad movie sort of way.

Now there is a scene in "Suicide Commandos" which sort of sums up the movie; this small group of commandos are boarding the plane and two men walk over carrying one of those old fashioned gramophones. The order is to give them a full military send off but funds are tight so rather than a band they have to do with a record. It is funny and you feel it is a gag which wrote itself as the budget for the movie limited certain scenes so they got creative but it is also corny with some poorly written gags in their. On the subject of budget you get a real sense that a fair slice of that went to Aldo Ray as the recognizable face and who they get their money's worth from by having him in most scenes.

The thing about "Suicide Commandos" is that it is a real mixed bag as the intentional collection of oddballs is amusing; none more so than Ugo Fangareggi as Harper with his chin which is one of the longest I have ever seen but what happens isn't exactly great. To make matters worse you have the budget badness with obvious model war planes used when it comes to the special effects combined with some less than stunning camera work.

What his all boils down to is that if you are looking for an entertaining action movie like "The Dirty Dozen" then "Suicide Commandos" is not it as whilst it is similar it is not entertaining as an action movie. But as a bad movie with a lot of corny scenes which end up terrible it is kind of amusing.


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