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Too Late the Hero

Too Late the Hero (1970)

May. 20,1970
|
6.6
|
PG
| Drama Action War

A WWII film set on a Pacific island. Japanese and allied forces occupy different parts of the island. When a group of British soldiers are sent on a mission behind enemy lines, things don't go exactly to plan. This film differs in that some of the 'heroes' are very reluctant, but they come good when they are pursued by the Japanese who are determined to prevent them returning to base.

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Invaderbank
1970/05/20

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

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Abbigail Bush
1970/05/21

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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Tayyab Torres
1970/05/22

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

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Fatma Suarez
1970/05/23

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

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JohnHowardReid
1970/05/24

Dialogue supervisor: Robert Sherman. Producer: Robert Aldrich. Associate producer: Walter Blake. (Available on an excellent Fremantle DVD). An Associates and Aldrich/Palomar Production. U.S. release through Cinerama: July 1970. U.K. release through C.I.R.O.: 18 October 1970. Sydney opening at the Paris. 16,135 feet. 144 minutes. Cut by the distributor to 133 minutes in the U.S.A.SYNOPSIS: Mixing the time-honored clichés of the war film with a fashionable dash of cynicism, "Too Late the Hero" has Robert Aldrich stamped all over it. — Nigel Andrews in Monthly Film Bulletin.COMMENT: The main impediment to a favorable review of Robert Aldrich's film is its length. It could be trimmed by at least 30 minutes to advantage. I would start in on Ronald Foster's part, then I'd eliminate some of the close-ups and needlessly repeated reaction shots in individual scenes and trim the long sequence of the microphone pursuit which, despite Aldrich's commendable use of the sound track, goes on for far too long. Fortunately, the film comes to an exciting climax with its obstacle race across the plain, and some of the photography here is absolutely breathtaking. In fact, most of the film was obviously lensed on location. There is not even a single frame of stock footage - which is a pleasant and most agreeable surprise. But on the debit side, the story is uncomfortably akin to an earlier Aldrich war movie, "The Dirty Dozen", which has a more entertaining script and higher production values than this one. Also that film's cast was far more interesting. Despite his prominence in the credits, Henry Fonda makes only a fleeting appearance, and neither Cliff Robertson nor Michael Caine have a strong enough screen presence to overcome some of the weaknesses in their material — although they both make a game try. Admittedly, reliable old Harry Andrews is back as the British C.O., and the rest of the players are competent, but unfortunately lack the sort of sparkle the film needs.

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Claudio Carvalho
1970/05/25

In the spring of 1942, in Southwest Pacific, Captain John G. Nolan (Henry Fonda) postpones the leave of the volunteer Lieutenant Sam Lawson (Cliff Robertson) and gives an assignment in New Hebrides Island with the British troops based on the required profile – fluency in Japanese and good shape. When Lt. Lawson arrives in the base, the commander explains that the island is divided in the British and Japanese sectors and he should go with a group of soldiers behind the Japanese lines to destroy their radio and transmit a false message to the Japanese forces. Captain Hornsby (Denholm Elliott) is assigned to lead the group, but during the tense mission, he has friction with Private Tosh Hearne (Michael Caine). When things go wrong, the soldiers have to fight to survive while exposing their weakness in character."Too Late the Hero" is a realistic and original war movie with human and cynical characters in the jungle of an island in Pacific. Michael Caine plays a rude and insubordinate cockney soldier that is only interested in surviving. Most of the soldiers are cowards that fight only to save their lives and not for patriotism or idealism. The hero of the title is actually an anti-hero that redeems himself in the end. The dialogs are cynical and Tosh has the best lines, like for example, when he proposes to Lawson to go North; or when he talks about the hole where he lives in his hometown in a total lack of perspective. My only remark is the long running time that could be a little shorter. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Assim Nascem os Heróis" ("This Way the Heroes Are Born")

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fedor8
1970/05/26

TLTH is a solid war movie made in a time devoid of Tom Cruises, Di Crapios and other mattodamonic Bennaffleckians. Caine and Robertson look like men, not wimpy little effeminate preppies which we're served and rammed down our throats en masse nowadays. Michael Caine participated in the Korean war as a soldier, while Denholm Elliot spent several years as a Japanese P.O.W. in WW II; what's the toughest ordeal Casey Affleck ever had to go through? A broken nail? And it partially shows on screen, of course.The main drawback is the length; I saw no reason for this plot to use up over 2 hours of screen time. A minor problem was the occasional mumbling.One of the things I liked here is that there was a more realistic way of looking at World War II. In recent decades we've had U.S. liberals and other clueless Leftists tell us how "valid" and "noble" that war was, as opposed to other wars that came later, that were supposedly totally immoral, unclean, nasty and vile. However, there is no such thing as a "pure" or "sanitized" war. The lack of discipline, morality and even courage among some of the British troops in this film is a refreshing break from the kind of silly over-glorification of WW II - especially the way this stands in contrast to the over-vilification of wars fought by America in the decades after that.Judging by Caine's memories (from his autobiography) related to filming TLTH, a documentary on the making of the film would have been fascinating to watch.

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Ref 65
1970/05/27

Too late the hero is one of the most boring movies that I've ever seen,well its not that bad,the action was good,the acting is decent and the battles are good.For a start,half way throughout the movie some things can just drive you insane and I'm not going to talk about that.It's about an American lieutenant who leads a platoon of British soldiers into a jungle somewhere in the Pacific to destroy a Japanese radio station.At that time a Japanese Major captured two men and are threatening the rest of the survivors to surrender or else he will kill them.As a lot of WWII movies are found interesting I found absolutely nothing interesting at all.The atmosphere for this movie is good and the effects are crap.This movie is nothing but sheer disappointment nd nothing can change that(yes,even a remake).The blood wounds are cheesy for a movie that was made in 1969.I don't know what the deal was on making this movie,it was probably seen as spectacular for its time.I was going to give it a 5 at the start but the boring parts made me give it a 4 instead.Mostly if you see a war movie you are expecting to see a lot of action but this is a war movie that should be avoided because there is barely any action in this movie.War movie fans will be disappointed with this heap of junk.

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