Overrated

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

This is a standard WWII movie from the 1950s, but it's not recommended only to fans of the genre, but to movie buffs that like all-star casts full of up-and-coming actors!The cinematography is stunning, and the editing nice, and the soundtrack is also great, with his rousing song that suits perfectly the movie. And the plot kept me interested all the time.All the actors give top-notch performances: Richard Widmark is the platoon commander, and while is tough, he shows an human side in his flashback of his teaching days when he helped a student suffering from stutter. A pre-evil Jack Palance stars as Widmark's co-commander. Richard Boone, Karl Malden, Jack Webb, Robert Wagner (in his debut), Bert Freed and Neville Brand gave good supporting performances. And even Martin Milner and Skip Homeier star as two young marines.By the way, the best characteristic about this movie was his realism - no use of stock footage, real planes of the period the movie was set, plus, it's not larger than life. Recommended to all war movie fans.

HALLS OF MONTEZUMA is yet another Hollywood WW2 movie of the 1950s that sees a squad of US soldiers landing on a Japanese-occupied island in the Pacific and attempting to take down the enemy. They're led in this case by Richard Widmark in the type of role that could easily have been played by John Wayne or one of the other contemporary action stars of the era. Their goal is to find and destroy a Japanese rocket base that has been sending out a wave of rockets decimating their troops.The film boasts the likes of Robert Wagner, Neville Brand, Jack Palance, Karl Malden, and Richard Boone in support. Most of the actors get at least one scene of emoting to themselves. The battle scenes are depicted in a vivid and realistic way with the intercutting of real-life battle footage to add to the realism. The film also explores the relationship of the soldiers with the enemy as some of the troops are driven to the edge by having to take prisoners instead of killing them outright. It's fairly engaging stuff, with a handful of hard-hitting moments to see it through.

Entertaining look at combat from the viewpoint of a small band of Americans slugging it out with the Nips over a dinky, but important, section of real estate on some nothing little island. I chuckled mirthlessly at the "no shoot" landing the jarheads made against a handful of sneaky, albeit useless, soldiers of the Imperial Army. The Americans were fortunate to have had that old building to base in; it took rocket after rocket and was little the worse for wear after a couple of days of constant shelling. I really appreciated the robotic, killing machine gyrene sarge who lost his eyes but valiantly stated: "just point me in the right direction and I'll keep fighting". What a hoss! As usual, we had to have the comic relief: this time in the form of a hard drinking, harder fighting GI who actually carried his private still around with him. I enjoyed seeing some of the old faces, but Widmark was the only bright spot in the entire production. Fun but corny.

One of the rare american war movies with a certain sense ofreality: Richard Widmark as a platoon leader conquering thepacific island of okinawa. From the long waiting time before theattack on the battleship, to the landing operation on the shores ofokinawa, to the painful losses of his men, we follow these seriouslooking americans. Their faces seem motionless and two of theofficers, including Widmark, have psychosomatic war syndroms.The killing is no fun in this movie, the dying is no fun to watch. All inall, not very entertaining, but a lesson in war, much more realisticthan later US-movies on the same topic.