Short, quirky, extremely offbeat Michael J. Pollard is like a novelty song of an actor, with BONNIE AND CLYDE his one big hit while in other movies, such as Michael Winner's fourth collaboration with Oliver Reed, HANNIBAL BROOKS, he doesn't really fit at all...
Although he seems deliberately cast against type as a gung-ho explosives-expert leading partisans around to kill Germans, and since Reed himself hardly seems part of World War II, both work together comfortably enough in a hybrid of road movie, comedy and action/adventure where Reed, a POW in Germany... after conveniently working in a German zoo... takes a prized elephant across enemy lines into, eventually, Switzerland...
And there's hardly any pressure to think otherwise - although it's not an entirely happy ending for some of the humans including a bad German, a good German and a lovely Polish ingenue (meanwhile Reed & Winner's THE SYSTEM co-star John Alterton turns up with POW-Cinema legend James Donald)...
Overall the usually bombastic Reed seems passive and indifferent towards war, catered to the Vietnam-era audience as Winner overindulges in zoom shots, the camera thrusting forward and back - yet mostly to showcase the Austrian woodsy locales that, like that elephant, provides a nifty backdrop for a decent time-filler.
Although he seems deliberately cast against type as a gung-ho explosives-expert leading partisans around to kill Germans, and since Reed himself hardly seems part of World War II, both work together comfortably enough in a hybrid of road movie, comedy and action/adventure where Reed, a POW in Germany... after conveniently working in a German zoo... takes a prized elephant across enemy lines into, eventually, Switzerland...
And there's hardly any pressure to think otherwise - although it's not an entirely happy ending for some of the humans including a bad German, a good German and a lovely Polish ingenue (meanwhile Reed & Winner's THE SYSTEM co-star John Alterton turns up with POW-Cinema legend James Donald)...
Overall the usually bombastic Reed seems passive and indifferent towards war, catered to the Vietnam-era audience as Winner overindulges in zoom shots, the camera thrusting forward and back - yet mostly to showcase the Austrian woodsy locales that, like that elephant, provides a nifty backdrop for a decent time-filler.