Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

War Pigs Blu-ray Movie Review

The Dirty However-Many-Of-Them-There-Are.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman December 14, 2015

War Pigs should have been called War Clichés. Director Ryan Little's (Saints and Soldiers) film essentially pieces together The Dirty Dozen and The Guns of Navarone and calls it a (low budget) movie. In War Pigs, a ragtag group of soldiers known as, yes, "The War Pigs," must train to go behind enemy lines and deal with a massive weapon capable of leveling entire cities. Sound familiar? It should. There may not be a World War II film so devoid of creativity as this one. From character personalities to their standard issue training regimen, from group internal strife to unsurprising gelling at the end, there's no shortage of obvious genre familiarity at play for the duration. Add in a dearth of action -- and routine action when the bullets do fly -- and War Pigs stumbles through a brief runtime and proves to be one of the most forgettable War films ever made.

The pigs.

Lieutenant Jack Wosick (Luke Goss) is a veteran officer with charges levied against him. He follows orders to a fault and gets his men killed in the process. And he just so happens to be the right man to lead a dangerous mission. He's recruited by the enigmatic, cowboy hat-wearing Major A.J. Redding (Mickey Rourke) to lead a mission deep behind German lines and provide an assessment of a massive artillery piece that's under construction and capable of leveling cities with but a few shots. Wosick is ordered to recruit "The War Pigs," a band of misfit soldiers so named for their love of rolling around in the mud (which seems metaphorical, but who knows). But before they tread into German territory, they're going to need to undergo some training. Lots of training, in fact -- like that classic stand-by of sketching naked French ladies -- if they're going to gel enough to succeed. Enter Captain Hans Picault (Dolph Lundgren), a French national once conscripted into the German army who trains the men in the ways of teamwork, combat, and survival. They'll need all of it to survive their daring mission that could turn the tide of the war.

War Pigs plays out like a childhood fantasy, like a group of friends who decided to sit down one weekend, watch several World War II movies, and hurriedly pen their own script, influenced by all of the major story lines and raw character arcs that shape the others. Now that they're all older and somehow been funded to make a major motion picture, they've dusted off the script and hired some name actors to replicate the other half of their childhood, running around the woods with their fathers' unloaded rifles while wearing some surplus uniforms purchased on closeout from the Army Navy store and pretending to play G.I.s vs. Nazis. Really, the movie is so shallow, simple-minded, and unoriginal that it's a wonder it got made at all. It fills no void rather than a spot on the new release shelf (if video stores still existed in any number) and serves only as resumé padding for all involved.

War Pigs does cobble together an interesting cast of aging actors and familiar faces that promise some credibility that never materializes. First, and most disappointingly, is the limited screen time for both Chuck Liddell and Mickey Rourke, the former of whom isn't seen again after the first few minutes and the latter of whom only pops in for a few dialogue scenes near the beginning and, again, at the end. The movie miscasts the Swedish Lundgren as a French resistance fighter. He does get some serious screen time and carries the part well enough, minus his sinus-y, forced, on-and-off French accent. It's too bad the filmmakers couldn't have finagled Jean-Cleude Van Damme to play that part, recast Lundgren elsewhere, and made sort of an impromptu Universal Soldier reunion movie (Van Damme also starred in Legionnaire). Luke Goss seems the only sensibly cast and ever-present of the film's poster boys quartet. His character epitomizes generic -- he's facing charges and has gotten some of his men killed by strictly following orders rather than evolve with the battlefield situation before him -- which leads to the film's only real effort at character evolution when he's faced with the expectedly similar scenario at the climax.

War Pigs Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

War Pigs lacks the traditional war movie grit and grain in favor of an almost excessively smooth digital sheen that doesn't reduce detail but that does disrupt the classic filmic stylings many audiences might expect of a movie of this variety. That said, aside from the disappointing aesthetics, there's little room for complaint from a purely technical perspective. Details are terrific. Military uniforms are very revealing, particularly the rougher, worn-down spots, frays, and caked-on mud and blood. Faces are likewise complex and effortlessly so. Pores, scruff, and wounds are on full display. Background support pieces are sharp and detailed, particularly woodland foliage and terrain. An overhead shot of dense forest is smeary but it's the only example in the movie. Colors are fine, limited largely to numerous shades of natural and combat uniform greens. Various earthy shades support and red blood and Nazi paraphernalia add some vibrance to the palette. Black levels and skin tones are fine. Noise is an occasional problem, but banding, aliasing, macroblocking, and other maladies are not of any concern.

War Pigs Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

War Pigs features an active and immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. While not quite as precise, fully enveloping, and totally immersive as tracks supporting bigger movies with a substantially larger budget, this track is no slouch. Action scenes, few and scattered as they may be, are excellent. Machine gun fire rattles around the stage, seeming to emanate from various locations around the listening area. Semi automatic rifle shots crack with a nice bit of natural weight and pop. Armor rumbles through the stage with more than enough rattly, weighty bass. Planes occasionally zip around the listening area. Minor woodland ambience, like snapping twigs and singing birds, help define the environment outside of battle. General background sounds at the military camp are lively and filling. Music enjoys good all-around definition and detail, including a bit of surround support. Dialogue delivery is clear and detailed with positive center balance.

War Pigs Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of War Pigs contains no supplemental content. Note that this package does include a DVD copy of the film.

War Pigs Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Truth be told, War Pigs is a decent enough movie in a vacuum and one that adults who used to devour these sorts of movies as a kid might like as a light new entry into the WWII genre. But compared to even mediocre genre films, it's completely, utterly, and totally unoriginal. It brings nothing new to the table. Character arcs are tired. The plot is recycled. The action is bland. It looks good enough for what was clearly a fairly cheap production, but truly there's not a thing here worthy of a recommendation, outside of maybe enjoying Dolph Lundgren do his best French accent. The Blu-ray, though completely devoid of supplements, is fine. Video and audio shine but that's hardly reason anymore to give a disc a look. Sad to say, but skip it.