ReaderKenka
Let's be realistic.
Hadrina
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Guillelmina
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
evanston_dad
Hot damn, what a good movie "The Guns of Navarone" is. What took me so long to watch it?Was anyone else struck by how similar this movie is to the recent "Star Wars" movie "Rogue One?" At times the similarities were so great that I had to believe the creators of "Rogue One" were directly influenced by this film.A classic men-on-a-mission movie, "The Guns of Navarone" is mostly a straight up combat film, but a terrific screenplay by Carl Foreman and equally terrific performances by Gregory Peck and David Niven introduce some intelligent insights into the moral ambiguity of what it means to get the job done when that job is killing other men, the entire business of war. The special effects in "The Guns of Navarone," including a ship wreck and an exploding mountain top, garnered the film an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Dramatic or Comedy Score (a typically magnificent one by Dimitri Tiomkin), and Best Sound.Grade: A
elvircorhodzic
THE GUNS OF NAVARONE is an adventure war drama about a small group of Allied commandos, who were sent to the almost impossible mission in a fictional Aegean island. Film is based on Alistair MacLean's 1957 novel of the same name.The commandos, disguised as Greek fishermen on a decrepit fishing vessel, sail across the Aegean Sea. Their destination is the island of Navarone. This dangerous job is full of challenges. Several thousand British troops depends on them. They must destroy the big guns, which are stationed on a small island. They rendezvous with local resistance fighters. However, one of the team members has seriously injured her leg on a cliff. The mission becomes even more difficult, because one team member is saboteur...The film is full of attractive actions scenes in exotic locations, which seem pretty rough in war conditions. Mr. Thompson has stressed a relationship between the individual protagonists, therefore, the film has received a melodramatic tone. The war has remained in the background of the story. A war motif is shown through a small group of capable people, which are up against far more numerous enemy. This mission does not forgive mistakes. It has, in some segments, contributed to the credibility of the acting and realism of the story. Gregory Peck (Capt. Keith Mallory) is a renowned spy and mountaineer, who is committed to their mission, as a decisive leader. Below a rough and insensitive surface is a self-sacrificing character, who takes care of his fellow soldiers and their emotions. Anthony Quinn (Col. Andrea Stavrou) is a brave and simple Greek soldier. He is an unpredictable character with a strange sense of humor, who shows his true nature in the end. The two of them are in a vortex of a serious vengeance.David Niven (Cpl. Miller) is an explosives expert and incorrigible pessimist. He is a character who knows a lot of things and for each of them has a convenient sarcastic review. However, he made a mistake in the assessment of people. Anthony Quayle (Maj. Roy Franklin) is a cheerful as an original leader. An unbreakable spirit of a dedicated soldier.Irene Papas (Maria Pappadimos) Gia Scala (Anna) are the local resistance fighters. They have brought a small dose of intrigue and romance in the story.James Darren (Pvt. Spyro Pappadimos) is the brother of Maria and a native of Navarone. Stanley Baker (Pvt. 'Butcher' Brown) is an engineer and expert knife fighter. He is a killer, who is tired of killing.A constant tension, explosive actions and heroic ventures are a real treat for all fans of this genre.
Filipe Neto
This film tells how the Allies sought to destroy a pair of German super-guns, placed in a fortress on a major naval strait in Greece. The film emphasizes from the start the damage that cannons do to allied plans and the surplus value that would come if they were destroyed. So, a group of British soldiers, backed by Greek resistance, will try to penetrate the fort undercover to break up with the guns. Okay, I am the most vehement supporter of the quality of this film, but as drama more than as a war movie. In fact, it does not have many action and reveals itself much more stopped, slow and reflective than a war movie usually is. Here we don't see the emotions, adventure or danger that is dormant in "Where Eagles Dare", based on a book of the same author and shot a few years later. On the other hand, the great seriousness and dramatic rapport of the cast led by David Niven, Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn, makes the film much heavier and denser, helping to highlight the dramatic face even more so that the public almost forgets the war. The cast is luxury and they are all up to the challenge. There are no freshmen. All are great actors, with experience and a great talent.
jimbo-53-186511
A British team are tasked with entering occupied Greece and destroying a large gun tower on the island of Navarone. With the gun tower being heavily guarded by the Nazis, the team have to use their ingenuity to outfox the Germans.The Guns Of Navarone is a good story and to be fair it had enough going for it to hold my interest, but unfortunately it's a film that I found to be sporadically thrilling and compelling rather than consistently compelling and thrilling.The first thing has to be addressed is the length of the film and one thing I really don't like is a film that spends an awful long time just setting up the plot - sometimes this can work with complex plots that need to introduce several characters or films that involve interwoven stories, but where the plot is rather linear such as it is in The Guns Of Navarone I would have much preferred it if we'd have got to the crux of the plot much sooner (some of the earlier scenes felt rather redundant and didn't seem to do much to drive the narrative forward). Although the slightly plodding pace is more of a problem in the first half sadly examples of it are dotted throughout the film - director J Lee Thompson seems to use a lot of long takes which admittedly look good, but inevitably just add unnecessary length to the picture.The cast are a key to make this work and although David Niven has top billing (according to IMDb) it is very much Gregory Peck who is the lead actor here and he does a great job giving a rather calm and understated performance as the 'voice of authority'. David Niven is also excellent in what I would class as a 'supporting role' in this film.Still as I've mentioned it has enough about it to make it worth watching - although J Lee Thompson seems to have tried to turn this into some kind of epic he does mostly keep the story on track and it does slowly manifest itself into an intriguing battle of wits. It's certainly worth a look and probably would have been even better if the running time would have been trimmed slightly.
