Let's see: tap dancing, gymnastics, lousy music, a painful dubbed soundtrack, stilted dialog, ridiculous situations. I'm sorry, I'll have to take the previous reviewer's word for quality action scenes at the end. I stopped watching it at the point I was starting to wish someone would hurl a lead-weighted baseball at my head.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind films with a comedic take on war, nor do I have an objection to fictional story lines based on real wars; many films fit either or both of those criteria and are fine fare.
Neither do I require that a war film be an epic like "Lawrence of Arabia" or have the historic scope (not to mention stellar cast of "The Longest Day", "A Bridge Too Far" or "Midway". Lots of films that fall short of those works are perfectly fine viewing.
"Five for Hell" was just too much for me - or, to be accurate, too little. There's a world of difference between "comedic" and "so awful it ridicules itself", and this one does. I can see little that would make this film worse; only, perhaps, had it been an Ed Woods production, or included gratuitous (and ridiculously anachronistic) scenes with bikini-clad girls it could be so.
If a war-movie equivalent to "Mystery Science Theater 3000" existed, "Five for Hell" would be a prime candidate for inclusion therein. It's not a case of "so bad it's good", it's so bad, it's awful. I can't accept it as a comedy. A bad attempt at comedy is many things, but it isn't funny - and if it ain't funny, it ain't comedy.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind films with a comedic take on war, nor do I have an objection to fictional story lines based on real wars; many films fit either or both of those criteria and are fine fare.
Neither do I require that a war film be an epic like "Lawrence of Arabia" or have the historic scope (not to mention stellar cast of "The Longest Day", "A Bridge Too Far" or "Midway". Lots of films that fall short of those works are perfectly fine viewing.
"Five for Hell" was just too much for me - or, to be accurate, too little. There's a world of difference between "comedic" and "so awful it ridicules itself", and this one does. I can see little that would make this film worse; only, perhaps, had it been an Ed Woods production, or included gratuitous (and ridiculously anachronistic) scenes with bikini-clad girls it could be so.
If a war-movie equivalent to "Mystery Science Theater 3000" existed, "Five for Hell" would be a prime candidate for inclusion therein. It's not a case of "so bad it's good", it's so bad, it's awful. I can't accept it as a comedy. A bad attempt at comedy is many things, but it isn't funny - and if it ain't funny, it ain't comedy.