Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

reisen55 This has always been a fond memory for me, one those films that always turned up on TV when I was young and I was blown away by the literal ending of the film, which is very well edited. Battle scenes are hard to do and the construction here is well done.YES the tanks are not period and even PRIVATE RYAN used the Yugoslav T-34 to Tiger Tank conversion, only FURY used the world's only real, running TIGER I Tank. Perhaps one of the best tank-battle scenes ever so I can easily forgive the M47 and M48 Patton tanks, they show up in almost every film. One of the problems with World War II films is that realistic stuff is hard to get --- until you have CGI when it can be made up.Performances - real, gritty and somewhat to be expected. Peppard is excellent, Hudson his rock solid self and Nigel Green always good as a British stiff upper lip commander.Plot - fairly obvious really, a long desert ride to meet a ton of Germans and blow stuff up with complications.Special effects - for 1967 this was excellent! The final confrontation is spectacular, quite the largest explosive work in a film before or since.So, while it is not the most thoughtful film, it is a ride through the desert to get to a fight, and not bad. Only THE DESERT RATS is superior in it's own way, far smaller and centered on Tobruk too. I recommend both and slip in THE DESERT FOX if you have time and an excellent evening indeed.Just watch out for the explosions at the end.

zardoz-13 When the well-armed Allied heroes aren't shooting, stabbing, and blowing up their Axis adversaries in Arthur Hiller's "Tobruk," they are at each other's throats in this exciting World War II action-adventure opus set behind enemy lines in the Sahara desert during 1942. "Tobruk" doesn't rank as the greatest W.W.II military thriller, but this widescreen Universal Studios production is definitely a splendid way to blow off 110 minutes. You can tell that this Rock Hudson & George Peppard war epic was filmed after World War II ended because the story features an elite German-Jewish commando squad sanctioned by the British. No World War II movie made during the actual war would have dared present such an undercover outfit because most studios shunned anything that concerned Jewish characters. For example, government propagandists in the Office of War Information/Bureau of Motion Pictures severely criticized Warner Brothers for their 1944 movie "Mr. Skeffington" because the agency felt it played into the hands of Axis propagandists and their anti-Jewish sentiments. Another reason is that the heroes wield a flame thrower, a devastating weapon that barbecues the opposition, as unsavory a way to kill as it was to die, and the OWI/BMP as well as Hollywood's Production Code Administration would have condemned it because of its graphic nature. Neither agency felt that the public was prepared to watch this kind of horrendous combat. Furthermore, the government propagandists and the PCA would never have countenanced the strife among the Allies; this would have shown the Allies in a negative light and all war movies were designed to boost morale. Casting aspersions against our Allies would never have flown in any movie. Finally, Rock Hudson's heroic protagonist Major Craig is anything but a hero of the World War II era variety. Craig warns his commanding officer Colonel Harker before the raid: "My mother didn't raise any heroes." "Tobruk" opens with this narration: "North Africa . . . September 1942. The darkest hours. The world watches as Adolf Hitler's high stepping Afrika Korps sweep onward to Egypt and the Suez Canal while the British—their strength dissipated by defeat—make a desperate attempt to regroup at El Alamein." History in a nutshell! The British want to deprive German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel of fuel for his Afrika Korps tank units. Before the British can accomplish this mission, they have to rescue a Canadian, Major Daniel Craig (Rock Hudson of "Hornet's Nest") from a Vicky French P.O.W. camp. Earlier, Craig had proposed his plan for the destruction of Rommel's fuel supplies, but the narrow-minded English High Command led by Colonel Harker (Nigel Green of "The Ipcress File") rejected it out of hand. An elite squad of German Jews sympathetic to the Allied cause masquerade as Nazis and snatch Craig from the French and then fly him back to North Africa for a rendezvous in the desert with Colonel Harker. Craig isn't sure about which side Captain Bergman (George Peppard of "The Blue Max") is on until he lands at an Allied base. Harker briefs Craig and Bergman about a proposed raid on the underground German fuel bunkers in Tobruk. Although the Royal Air Force has been hammering Rommel, Harker explains that too much fuel is still getting through to the Desert Fox. Harker uses Berman's pseudo German troops to escort a party of raiders disguised as P.O.W.s and Craig will guide them across 800 miles of the worst desert that the Sahara can offer. Craig criticizes the plan, "It's suicide!" Harker proclaims as a rebuttal: "It's orders!" Our heroes have several minor encounters with the enemy. First, they trick nearby encampments of Italian and German troops to fire on each other while they slip past them. Second, they plunge into a German mind field at considerable peril to themselves to dissuade Axis pursuit. Third, they encounter a native tribe that sells them two British subjects, a father and daughter working for the Nazi, for ten rifles. The father, Henry Portman (Liam Redmond of "Barry Lyndon"), has a special message called the Kesselring document about a group of dissent generals in the Egyptian Army who are plotting to attack the British. Eventually, Portman and his daughter die through misadventure and we learn that a traitor walks among Captain Bergman's men. Not long afterward, our heroes cruise into Tobruk with a German police escort. They discover to their shock that two reserve divisions of the Afrika Korps are relaxing in Tobruk. Our heroes scramble to warn Her Majesty's Royal Naval assault troops to cease and desist. Craig and Bergman silence the big guns at Mesa Cove and Craig appropriates a German tank and destroys the underground fuel bunkers. Bergman dies in a burst a flame on the background. The German spy emerges at the finale and Colonel Harker shoots him before he is shot by the Germans. Major Craig and three survivors escape and make it to a Royal Navy pick-up farther up the coast.Arthur Hiller makes certain that we are never in the dark about what is going to happen. Leo V. Gordon's tightly written script provides a wealth of exposition. Hiller takes the starch out of some typical war movie scenes. Instead of staging the briefing in full uniform in a tent, Hiller has the commanding officer brief Hudson and Peppard while he is taking a shower. He conducts the remainder of the briefing without a shirt. "Tobruk" is undoubtedly the first World War II movie where Jews are action heroes and their British commanding officer above Peppard questions their trustworthiness. Hudson is adamantly an anti-hero, but he handles the flame thrower well and he knows out to steal a German tank with a dud hand grenade. There's lots of crisp interesting dialogue in this explosive, action-packed tale about heroes. Hudson makes a good level-headed hero, while Peppard wins our hearts with his bravado, especially in his death scene.

defiant1-4 I just want to know why there is a another movie just like this one, with different actors. It is called Raid on Rommel and was made in 1971. Several of the same scenes are used in both movies. The story line is the same, just the actors are different. Any one out there have any ideas? I would never have noticed but for some reason one night both movies were showed back to back on a local late night movie. There were a lot of things not historically correct with both, but they were both entertaining and I enjoyed them both. The main character in this one is Rock Hudson, were Richard Burton is the main character in the other one. This has just been something that has always bothered me since watching both movies that night.

SgtSlaughter Loosely based on fact, "Tobruk" tells the story of an Allied mission to destroy Rommel's fuel supply at the port city of Tobruk. The film is quite entertaining, and there are some good ideas in the script, and some nicely shot action scenes, but the film never really rises above average.In 1942, the fate of the Mediterranean hangs in the balance. The Allies have devised a scheme to stop Rommel's advance to the Suez Canal. A group of German Jews led by Captain Bergman (George Peppard), now working with the British, will escort a company of English commandos led by the staunch Colonel Harker (Nigel Green) across 800 miles of harsh desert right into the port of Tobruk, where they will knock out the harbor guns which prevent British troops from landing in the harbor. Then the British will land a strike force to destroy Rommel's colossal underground fuel dump. The movie follows the trek across the desert, where the characters bicker over opposing ideals and motives, discover a traitor in their midst, get stuck in a minefield, etc. etc., and as expected, resolve their differences during a climactic encounter with the enemy."Tobruk" is ultimately a movie about conflicting ideals. There are plenty of noisy action sequences and suspenseful moments, but at the heart of the story is a weakly established conflict over different moral standards held by the main characters. Director Arthur Hiller had a significant background in directing TV shows, and it shows. "Tobruk" has a small-scale feel to it from start to finish. The sets – even the vast outdoor desert plains – are never filled with thousands of extras. This is a movie about what goes on between a few main characters. What's unfortunate is that in "Tobruk" they're never fully developed and, therefore, it's hard to care when they are settled. Major Craig is a selfish pacifist, but all he really does is bicker about how much he hates being on the mission. Nigel Green's Colonel Harker is a typical English officer, playing a part written as most Hollywood roles for the English characters were. He demands order, obedience and when men don't stand up to his authority he just shouts a lot and gets his way. Of the leads, George Peppard makes the most of his role as Captain Bergman. Bergman, a victim of Nazi terror, is out for revenge and out to help re-unite the Jewish people. What's hard to swallow is that Bergman already seems to know the Jews will re-unite in Israel, when it wasn't re-formed into a nation by the U.N. until sometime after the end of World War II. Despite this, Peppard is passionate but never overacts. This is the type of role he was perfectly suited for, and it was fun to watch his performance.All that said, "Tobruk" is still a pretty good movie. The question of heroism and duty is answered quite well near the film's conclusion, as each of the leads is forced into a situation they would rather not be in, where they must put their lives at stake in order to accomplish something important bigger than they are. Harker states, "We have few saving graces… perhaps our willingness to die for what believe is all that matters." Craig comes to respect Bergman's religious ideals and backs him up during the final battle sequence. And with that said… the final battle sequence is, quite simply, incredibly well-filmed. The Allied assault on the harbor guns is fantastic. There are dozens of soldiers running about on the beach as a huge artillery installation is blown to bits, and not the least part of it looks staged or faked. Later, this scene is put to shame as some of the heroes take out the entire fuel supply for Rommel with a tank. The fuel dump explodes in grand fashion, with dozens of huge explosions and orange fireballs, some of which must have been real. The visual effects are state-of-the art, especially when one considers that this film was shot in 1966. (It was nominated for Best Special Effects at the 1968 Oscars, but lost to Doctor Dolittle)."Tobruk" is entertaining and a sufficient afternoon adventure story. From start to finish, and it looks and sounds very authentic. Nothing about this movie seems staged, and despite an average-quality script, it's engaging and thought-provoking. I would suggest renting it at some point.