The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 14, 2015

'The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission' is currently available only as a double feature with 'The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission' from Olive Films. For more screenshots, please click through the first link.

Major Wright (Telly Savalas) is once again called back to duty by General Sam Worden (Ernest Borgnine) with orders to undertake a new mission: prevent the Nazis from establishing a Fourth Reich in the Middle East. The German plan involves placing twelve highly desirable individuals, all under the age of 35, into positions of power in the process of establishing the new Reich. Wright again assembles a team of castoffs and misfits living out their days in prison, all of them facing death by hanging or decades of hard labor. The men, which includes returning team member Joe Stern (Hunt Block), train, gel, and carry out their most important mission to date, intercepting a train carrying the 12 Nazis set to establish a new empire.

It's no surprise that 1988's television film The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission ended the series, and did so with something of prescient title. It's not that this film "killed" the series, though; it's not a bad little time-filler movie, it's that sheer repetitiveness that ultimately impedes the franchise. The Fatal Mission is nothing but the same movie as its predecessors with a new coat of paint on top of it. There's no advancing plot line, deeply developing characterization, nothing more than recycled content that's baseline entertaining but with nowhere to go. The Fatal Mission, then, seems a worthwhile ride off into the sunset, capturing the core franchise spirit and cadence and doing so with a general technical success and a story that's adequately engaging, along with a (mostly) new band of heroes to do the dirty work.

The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission features a 1080p, 4x3-framed transfer that preserves the film's original broadcast aspect ratio. Olive Films' image features good basic attention to detail and coloring. Facial lines, crisp uniform textures, and various terrain and manmade structures all enjoy solid definition. Colors are predominantly earthy with positive splashes of other hues tossed about, notably the red Nazi flag. There is a noticeable paleness to parts of the movie, particularly evident on flesh tones. Neither black levels nor skin tones present much of a problem. Grain isn't heavy and a few speckles dot the image. No banding, blocking, or other intrusions are evident.

The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack features serviceable authoritative gunfire and explosions. Music offers decent front-end spacing and solid basic clarity and attention to detail. General sound effects are mildly crunchy and raw but never questionable in terms of basic sonic details. Dialogue is clearly reproduced in the center.

The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission contains no supplemental content.

The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission is just another variation on what had, at four films, become a fairly stale story line. That doesn't mean it's a poor movie -- far from it -- it's just that there's not enough to distinguish it from the other films in the series beyond the basic plot driver and character faces. Still, it's worth a watch for genre and series fans. Olive Films' Blu-ray release of The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission offers solid enough video and audio. No extras are included. Pick it up on aggressive sale.