對于生活，要存有期冀，存有感恩之心，但不作非分之想。一個生日怎么過，其實并不重要。重要的是，有生的日子怎么過。人世就是這樣。有了溫暖，就抱緊。遵循內心的指引，用自己喜歡的方式活著，每一天，都是最好的生活。早安！人生不易，不要笑話別人。家家都有難念的經，人人都有難唱的曲。再風光的人，背后也有寒涼苦楚；再幸福的人，內心也有無奈難處。誰的人生都不易，笑人等于笑己，尊重別人就是尊重自己。最窮無非討飯，不死總會出頭。誰的人生十全十美，誰的生活沒有薄涼，誰敢保證一直都是人生得意。早安。時間過的飛快，天氣變得好壞；氣溫下降迅速；出門記得衣服；多吃素食蔬菜；夜晚記得多蓋；健康時時補鈣；快樂保持心態(tài)；朋友常常關愛；倍感舒心愉快； 早上常常關懷；人生充滿真愛；這條祝福不賴。時間過的飛快，天氣變得好壞；氣溫下降迅速；出門記得衣服；多吃素食蔬菜；夜晚記得多蓋；健康時時補鈣；快樂保持心態(tài)；朋友常常關愛；倍感舒心愉快； 早上常常關懷；人生充滿真愛；這條祝福不賴。

War is hell, in Robert Aldrich’s THE DIRTY DOZEN, for the first time in an American movie, the plot discards any form of pretense that its German-slaughtering finale is based on rationality or a moral higher ground, neither a reactive defense maneuver, nor a justified tit for tat, as simple as that, shock troops are deployed as extraordinary measures to off as many Nazi officers as possible so as to put the kibosh on the blamed WWII.

A box office hits of its time, THE DIRTY DOZEN is an almost exclusively stag’s party, this semi-suicide mission, dubbed as Project Amnesty, is led by OSS officer Major John Reisman (Marvin, hard-bitten to the gills), who is seconded to train a dozen death-row or lengthy-sentence served army prisoners into commandos, who can parachute in a chateau in Brittany where many German top brass inhabits, to carry out the reckless extermination derring-do, and those who survive can get their sentences pardoned (seriously, someone needs a lucky charm keep alive by the skin of his teeth, rising star Charles Bronson might be cut out for that).

In the prologue, Aldrich makes a snappy simile to foreground that the whole shebang likens putting one’s head in a noose, which only can be applied to the most hopeless ones, who can strive for one last attempt of redemption or seek out a fat chance of freedom, and they are squarely dispensable, yet it is somehow unthinking that Reisman and Sergeant Clyde Bowren (Jaeckel) deign to join the battle of cannon fodders instead of staying a bit out of harm’s way, individual heroism, is, as usual, in every nook and cranny of a mainstream American war picture.

But before that preposterous, patly formulated, but unsettlingly vicious climax, the film is actually brimming with lulz in its military drilling process of assessing, bonding and carousing, a gripping momentum never slacks, culminating in a stock victory of a rag-tag of underdogs punching above their weight to outfox regular soldiers during the war games in England, by that time, audience may even begin to invest in those hardened criminals with a smattering of compassion, not least to Robert T. Jefferson (Brown), the sole black prisoner whose commission is as per spurred by racism, and it is indeed him, who is designated to tackle the most dangerous job in the money shot.

No one can say the film aims for a realistic study of criminology, as the majority of the offenders are far less sociopaths than ordinary bozos or bitter cynics, John Cassavetes’ Franko belongs to the latter bracket, and he persuasively steals the show in emitting the voltage of intensity that runs rings around his less affective co-stars, though, the most virulent one among them, the religious fanatic Maggott (Savalas, in his manic mercuriality), a rapist and woman killer can give him a run for his money, and let us all extol that providential friendly fire! In the end of the day, THE DIRTY DOZEN’s male-pandering slant might take some shine off its conventional appeal as a devil-may-care entertainment kit out with a perverted throat-cutting lethality and workmanlike execution.

referential entries: Aldrich’s WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962, 8.2/10); Quentin Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009, 8.3/10).