Excellent, smart action film.

Disapointment

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

An ill-advised adaptation of one of Sven Hassle's WW2 Eastern Front novels, WHEELS OF TERROR is a film that it's quite difficult to enjoy. Hassle's books were always grimly realistic and downbeat, and despite attempts to emulate that style, WHEELS OF TERROR feels cheesy and quite sentimental by comparison. What's obvious here is that the budget was quite low, meaning that the various action scenes are only averagely handled, and at times look more like they belong in a '60s Italian war film than a 1980s movie. I do like the work of director Gordon Hessler (THE OBLONG BOX, SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN, etc.) but this is one of his lesser efforts.The cast is a mixed bag of familiar faces. Some stand out, others are bland. Bruce Davison headlines things but was quite wooden, I thought, although the ever-snide David Patrick Kelly (COMMANDO) is better as the volatile one. The all-American David Carradine is an odd choice to play the German officer, but it works quite well, and it's hard not to enjoy Oliver Reed's cameo as the pompous general. Overall, though, I found WHEELS OF TERROR to be quite a shoddy film, and not really something I can recommend, which is a surprise given that screenwriter Nelson Gidding previously wrote the scripts for classics like THE HAUNTING and THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN.

I should say it's a very poor man's CROSS OF IRON. The spirit is the same: German army troops, a platoon actually, lost in the middle of the Russian front. I won't add anything more to the other comments, which are very interesting concerning details, except, again, that the screenwriter was inspired by Sam Peckinpah's war movie shot in 1977. Brutal vision of war from the German side, in Russia, without any glorification of this very same war, helped by a powerful characterization - for this kind of production, I mean. A war movie that ends with a sort of moral. The cowardliness of the superior officers is pointed out very clearly. In this movie, they are not Maximilien Schell but Oliver Reed and David Carradine.A pretty good ending.

When I saw that this movie was released in 1987, I was worried that it might be another 80s low-budget "wanna-be-big-war-movie" the likes of The Big Red One or Casablanca Express. Sad to say that my assumptions were correct.When I watch other movies on DVD that contain deleted scenes, I sometimes wonder why a director deleted certain scenes. If the scenes were deleted from this one that should have been, there would not have been much left.There isn't much more to say about this flick, except that I was never sure if it was supposed to be a comedy or a serious movie.

Well it isn´t quite Saving Private Ryan, but that is no surprise I guess. However, the fact that I watched Spielbergs masterpiece, only a few weeks before I layed my eyes on this rather unknown WW2 movie, have contributed greatly to my sense of what you have the right to expect. So bear that in mind when you read the rest of this gibberish."Wheels of Terror" or "The Misfit Brigade"(The most suitable title if you ask me) is based on the books by Sven Hazel about a group of "criminal elements" in a german penal regiment. The books are entertaining and highly recommendable, so I had high hopes for this movie. It kicks of in 1943 with "our" platoon returning from the battle of Stalingrad, in a tank that is as post-war as the media you are reading this through. Well I can´t avoid mentioning just a few more flaws:The russians speak russian as they should, however the germans speak english.Try to picture this: You are a german commander. You have two tank destroyers in a good hulldown position. In your binoculars you see some T34´s approaching your position. What seems to be the right thing to do?A. Wait until the T34´s are within, a you can´t miss kindda range, and then destroy ´em.B. Order your tank destroyers to move forward, in an attempt to outmanoeuver the extremely fast and turreted T34´s.A few minutes into the battle a T34 crushes your command vehicle beneath its tracks. What is your initial reaction?A. Disbelief.B. Disbelief and a feeling that maybe you shouldn´t have driven your green american Jeep onto the battlefield anyhow.Well now try to picture this: You are a general in the german army standing in a german camp in russia. Suddenly eight russian planes start strafing the area. What would you do?A. Try to find some cover ASAP.B. Walk over to a slow, unarmed recon-plane and complain that there is no pilot to get you the hell out of there.If you feel deep in your heart that B,B and B are the right answers, then you will probaly regard this, as one of the most realistic war movies ever made.Please don´t think that this is an all bad movie. The dialogue and portrayal of the soldiers in the platoon are caught spot on and stays true to the books. Especially the performance of Jay O. Sander as "Tiny", the big dum demolition "expert", is worth mentioning.Watch this if you liked the books or are a big fan of war movies. 5/10