Why so much hype?

Very Cool!!!

The Worst Film Ever

Crappy film

Not a bad war film as these things go. Decent production values, nice attention to wardrobe, effective location shooting, and a couple of professional performances add up to a watchable movie along the lines of "The Guns of Navaron." A group of British Commandos and Jewish Special Servic Forces kidnap a Canadian officer, Hudson, to guide them through the desert in an attempt to destroy Rommel's fuel depot at Tobruk.The mission succeeds of course and an impending disaster by British forces is aborted. Most of the men die but a handful, including Hudson, manage to escape.It's not really worth going on about. The direction is by Arthur Hiller and is professionally competent. The story was written by Leo Gordon, who has given himself a small role as one of the raiders. Nigel Green as the Commando Colonel gives his usual compellingly hammy performance. The plot is a bit complicated. As in "The Guns of Navaron" and "Where Eagles Dare," there is a traitor in the group. If you can't pick him out after a few lines, you get no better than a D Plus in this course.George Peppard, born in Detroit, plays Bergman, the German Jew who speaks flawless German. The chief weakness in his performance is that he does not speak flawless German. My own command of German has deteriorated over the years into a kind of influence over it, but when Peppard gives an order like "Vorwarts!" (I had to leave out an umlaut) and it comes out as "Forvards!", even I have to wince.The climax is explosive and brutal, as it must be in a film like this.

The year is 1942 and Germany's famed 'Desert Fox' is winning the war in North Africa. His vaunted 'Afrika Korps' is nearly unstoppable and is only a short distance from all out victory. In this movie "Tobruk" comes the story of a last desperate attempt to stop Rommel at the port city of the same name. A small detachment of specialist troops called the SIG, join British commandos who will attempt to travel 800 miles through the vast, rugged and hostile Sahara desert and attack Rommel's secret oil reserves. In order to accomplish this nearly impossible mission, the British kidnapped a highly experienced but reluctant Canadian officer, Maj. Donald Craig (Rock Hudson) so that Nigel Green as Col. Harker and George Peppard as Capt. Kurt Bergman, can convince him it must be done. Other Hollywood greats like Guy Stockwell, Jack Watson as Sgt. Maj. Jack Tyne and Leo Gordon as Sgt. Krug are what make's this film completely memorable. Interestingly enough, the story itself was written by Leo Gordon and was so well conceived, it was used to enhance a nearly duplicate film called "Raid on Rommel" four years later. As for this movie, it is so packed with inner conflicts between characters that often, it's hard to tell who they are at war with. Nevertheless, the background world conflict is sufficient to view with admiration the soldiers who willingly gave so much for what they believed. A superior action-oriented film and one which has become a Classic in its own right. Highly recommended. ****

(There are Spoilers) Exciting but not all that accurate account of the war in the Egyptian/Libyan desert in the late summer and early fall of 1942. Being thrown back almost to the Suez Canal the British Army is in a desperate situation and in trying to stem the advance of the almost invincible Afrika Corps. It's then decided by higher up in both London and D.C to launch a major amphibious assault together with a coordinated commando raid on Rommell's fuel reserves, the gasoline that his tank's need to make that final push to Suez and beyond.Getting Canadian Major Donald Craig, Rock Hudson, freed from a Vicy French POW camp the British with a number of German/Jewish volunteers plan to strike the Afrika Corps where it hurts right in the fuel-tank and prevent it's panzer's together with their infantry detachment from breaking through the Al Alamein defense line and rushing and capturing almost unopposed the Egyptian cities of Alexandera and Cairo. Getting the commando units ready in the far flung desert Maj. Carig has trouble getting the Germans/Jewish commandos and British troops on the same wave length since both have very different ideas, like language in not only how the war in the desert should be fought but what reasons there is for fighting it. The Germans/Jews are fighting for a new homeland, after almost 2,000 years, that they don't have and the British are fighting to keep their empire that's soon to become, after WWII, just another chapter in the history books.One of the better post-WWII films to come out in the years after the war ended with Rock Hudson as the both strong and silent-type hero Maj. Craig. The Major seems to have gotten in way over his head when he finds out from captured, and later gunned down, German spy's Henry and his daughter Cheryl Portman, Liam Redmound & Heidy Hunt, that the German forces in Tobruk are far more numerous, in both panzer's and manpower, then they and the members of British intelligence back in London ever dreamed that they were. There's also the very serious threat of a Jihad being fomented by the non-Muslim Germans with the help of a number of Egyptian Army officers and non-other then the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajamin Al Husseini, himself. This in order to whip up the Muslim world against the hated unbelieving infidels, the British and their allies. Slowly making their way across some 800 miles of German mine-fields and shifting desert sands the rag-tag group of British soldier's and German/Jews get to Fortress Tobruk only to later find that they've been tracked there almost all the way by the Afrika Corps due to a German spy impersonating one of the German/Jewish commandos. With a major British assault about to be launched from the sea Maj. Craig together with the men in charge of both the British and German/Jewish commandos Col. Harker and Capt. Bergman, Nigel Green & George Peppard, now have their work cut out for them. In not only destroying the German fuel dumps thus keeping the panzer's from reaching their goal, the Suez Canal. But having to warn the oncoming British troops to abort their mission in order to keep them from being massacred by Rommel's panzer's troops and big guns just waiting from them to hit the beaches.Blood guts and countless gallons of ignited gasoline is what explodes across the screen in the movie "Tobruk" tremendously exciting final thirty minutes. With both Rock & George, or Maj. Craig & Capt. Bergman,going all out to prevent the Germans from at first annihilating the British troops on their assault barges' but at the same time knocking out Rommel's precious fuel reserves that are protected by hundred's of his finest Germen troops and about two dozen of his newest and most advanced panzer tanks.End of the world-like final with Rock, or Maj. Craig, commandeering, with the last few surviving German/Jewish commandos, a German Panzer and blasting away at the fuel tanks bursting them open and causing a river of flaming gasoline to overtake and burn what's still left of the German units who's job it is to guard and defend them. Not the happy ending that you would have hoped for, with both the courageous Capt. Bergman & Col. Harker getting it in the end. But at least Rock or Maj. Craig and the three German/Jewish commandos with him made it back to the British fleet waiting for them off shore a few miles west of Al Alamein. The Egyptian town that they, in their actions, prevented in the future from being overrun and captured by Rommel's Afrika Corps.

A lot of the comments above seem to be focused on whether or not the film-makers got the tanks and trucks right, yet at the same time, the writers admit they loved the movie. Me too; and I don't give a damn about the equipment, so long as it's reasonably close to the real thing. Here's the point: a war film that tackles the big issues which the war itself was partly fought over is such a rare bird – and especially one that's combined with some good character writing and knockout action sequences – that one should embrace it. The movie gives us spectacle, yes, but it does so in a thoughtful way, a remarkable achievement when one considers that the typical war movie of the era was more like "Where Eagles Dare" than this one, ie, a farrago of nonsense designed to showcase ludicrous special effects sequences."Tobruk" may not be the literal truth, but it shows people committed to and fighting for beliefs and ideas, and fully prepared to sacrifice their lives if necessary to achieve that greater good. Stirring stuff, and the editing in the final tank sequence is nothing short of amazing.