Director Aldrich manages to zero in on the griping and grime, the chaos and cohesiveness of Americans at war, and in so doing, makes The Dirty Dozen a clean hit that packs the highest-echelon example of wit and wallop.

| Jun 2, 2021

The Dirty Dozen with a fairly sharp script, plenty of excitement and adventure and a good cast still doesn't swim above the flood tide of over done World War II movie themes.

| Nov 20, 2020

In spite of an intelligent performance from Lee Marvin as the officer, director Robert Aldrich spins it out at such length that by the time the men actually get to France one has lost all interest.

| Nov 20, 2020

The picture's glorification of these swaggering, vicious criminals as heroes, its constant ridicule of discipline and authority and its depiction of the sadistic zeal with which the party goes about [killing] are grossly distasteful, sometimes revolting.

| Nov 20, 2020

An abundance of hilarious humor, injected by Mr. Aldrich, the star, Lee Marvin and the cast, is a blessed relief from the strain of gory details and grim aspects of war, fought by a mere handful of American on foreign soil.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 19, 2020

The hours fly by, the action is well directed and the laughs are numerous. But relevant connective tissue between the episodes seems to be missing.

| Jul 18, 2020

Unarguably one of the great war movies of all time.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 18, 2020

On the question of the fighting itself Aldrich has played the whole thing for conventional heroics and bloody fun, with every war cliche in the book.

| Mar 18, 2020

Robert Aldrich dissects the underlying ideas with just enough craft and thoughtfulness to make the implications of this gritty 1966 war drama unsettling in not entirely constructive ways.

| Aug 3, 2015

The lopsided interpretation works largely because of a fine cast and a taut plot that closes the credibility gap.

| Aug 3, 2015

Lee Marvin heads a very strong, nearly all-male cast in an excellent performance.

| Mar 26, 2009

Overriding such nihilism is the super-crudity of Aldrich's energy and his humour, sufficiently cynical to suggest that the whole thing is a game anyway, a spectacle that demands an audience.

| Jan 26, 2006

Aldrich has here set a precedent -- an anti-war film within the studio system. And it remains highly entertaining.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 4, 2005

Right up to the last scene the movie is amusing, well paced, intelligent.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 23, 2004

A raw and preposterous glorification of a group of criminal soldiers who are trained to kill and who then go about this brutal business with hot, sadistic zeal is advanced in The Dirty Dozen, an astonishingly wanton war film.

| May 20, 2003

[Marvin's] acid tongue and rigid discipline sets an unbreakable rod against which a top-rate cast get to flex against in this highly entertaining film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 1, 2000