[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Big Red One: The Reconstruction (1980) (2004)

A film based on director Samuel Fuller's own experience as a soldier in WWII.

It stars Lee Marvin as a sergeant in The Big Red One, the nickname for the US 1st Infantry Division and depicts their activities from first landing in North Africa, to the Allied invasion of Sicily, onto D-Day, Omaha Beach and Normandy, the liberation of France and on into Germany and finally Falkenau concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.

As you can imagine it's not a short film and this reconstruction by film maker and historian Richard Schickel adds 47 minutes to the films original running time of 113 mins.

Made with a small ensemble cast including Mark Hamill and Robert Carradine, as well as a shit load of extras, this is an action packed film that doesn't attempt to add phony morals, in essence it's a B-movie when compared to other war epics and is about Marvin's sergeant and the four soldiers who fought with him throughout the arduous three year campaign. There's no all encompassing Gods and Generals theme planning the attacks, we are simply with the men seeing and hearing the war through their eyes. The last reels in Czechoslovakia are deeply affecting.