Here’s yet another low-budget, straight-to-streaming British second world war flick: just as much of a men-on-a-mission throwback as last month’s War Blade, but a few notches more competent thanks to a more compact setup, occasional bursts of galvanic film-making from director Bill Thomas, and a grimier tone that is more Dirty Dozen than Saving Private Ryan.
It’s backs-to-the-wall time; Sergeant Mason (James Oliver Wheatley) and his not-especially-crack commando squad bungle a raid on a Nazi convoy and find themselves running across Normandy from an ever-growing pack of Wehrmacht. Retreating to a shabby farmhouse, they dig in for the imminent siege, despite the reluctance of Belgian owner Julien (Allan Relph), who doesn’t fancy being labelled as a partisan. Julien is also hiding a secret there, something that comes into play in negotiations with the presiding SS general Horseler (Bob Cryer, who has graduated from the Christoph Waltz school of suave goose-steppers).
