The 12 most iconic roles in military movie history
SUMMARY
We've all served with the zealot, the screamer, the wild man, the badass, the strange agent, and other signature personalities, but have we seen them accurately presented in movies? Well, sometimes. And in some cases when Hollywood has tackled military topics they've gone beyond simply "getting it right" and moved into the arena where icons are forged. Here are 12 examples of when movie makers got it absolutely right and then some:
1. Jack Nicholson as Colonel Nathan R. Jessup in "A Few Good Men"
Col. Jessup is as badass as grunts come . . . right up to the point where he gets his ass handed to him by a weenie JAG officer. With classic lines like "I eat breakfast 300 yards from 4000 Cubans who are trained to kill me, so don't think for one second that you can come down here, flash a badge, and make me nervous," and, of course, "You can't handle the truth!" Nicholson's reading of this somewhat psycho colonel is among the best military characters Hollywood ever created.
2. Steve McQueen as Captain Virgil Hilts in "The Great Escape"
Arguably the late Steve McQueen's best work, Capt Hilts of the Army Air Corps is known around the stalag as the "cooler king" because of all the time he's logged in solitary confinement following his escape attempts. In the climactic scene he jumps a barbed wire fence on a motorcycle (the only stunt McQueen didn't perform himself in the film) but gets caught up in a second fence and is recaptured. The final scene shows him being thrown back into the cooler, but his attitude shows that it's only a matter of time before he tries to escape again (because he's an American fighting man).
3. Robert Duvall as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore in "Apocalypse Now!"
In a high-budget blockbuster full of stars like Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando, Duvall steals the show with his portrayal of Army helo squadron skipper Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore. As Sheen's character muses, Kilgore "had that light in his eye . . . you knew he wasn't going to get so much as a scratch on him in Vietnam." And Kilgore cements his military movie icon status with lines like "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" and "Charlie don't surf!" Cue "Ride of the Valkyries" and go win some hearts and minds.
4. R. Lee Ermey as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in "Full Metal Jacket"
Before "Full Metal Jacket" came out in 1987 the pop culture standard for a DI was Sergeant Carter from the TV comedy "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." That changed in a big way with Ermey's brilliant portrayal of Gunny Hartman, as tough as he is doomed (oops, spoiler alert for any of you maggots who haven't seen this Stanley Kubrick-directed masterpiece). Hartman remains the cinematic boot camp standard by a mile with lines like "did your parents have any children that lived?" and "choke yourself, Pyle!" Ooh-rah, Devil Dog!
5. Gregory Peck as General Frank Savage in "12 O' Clock High"
Peck plays General Frank Savage, a B-17 driver who inherits a shitty command in the middle of high-tempo ops. Loses have been high and morale sucks, and Savage's initial attempts to square the unit away are met with stiff resistance. In time his superior leadership techniques take hold and things improve. Peck does a great job of capturing the nuances surrounding the age-old facts that life is lonely at the top and being in charge is no popularity contest. There's a reason this movie is shown in military leadership courses.
6. John Wayne as Captain Rockwell "Rock" Torrey in "In Harm's Way"
Some fans of "The Duke" may argue that "The Green Beret" or "Sands of Iwo Jima" are his signature military roles, but he brings a lot more to the role of Capt. Rock Torrey. "In Harm's Way" was a groundbreaking (and shocking with subplots that tackle themes like adultery and professional misconduct) film in its day and still holds up in many respects for how it presents the complexities of Navy life during wartime. "In Harm's Way" allows Wayne to do more than just swagger; he stretches his talents as an actor. And because of that it's his best military work.
7. George C. Scott as General George S. Patton in "Patton"
Everything the nation knows about General George S. Patton is a function of this movie and George C. Scott's amazing performance in it. "Patton" presents the general as the flawed genius he was, as brilliant as he was self-destructive and reckless. The opening soliloquy alone is total money: "No damn bastard ever won a war by dying for his country," he says in front of a giant flag backdrop. "He won it by making the other poor damn bastard die for his country."
8. Alec Guinness as Lieutenant Colonel Nicolson in "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Before he was in "Star Wars" as Obi-Wan Kenobe urging Luke Skywalker to use the force, Sir Alec Guinness played Lt. Col. Nicolson, the senior ranking officer among prisoners held by some nasty Japanese troops. Guinness' Nicolson is tough and resourceful and good at messing with his captors, especially when it comes to figuring out ways of keeping the construction of the Bridge on the River Kwai from proceeding. His performance is as good a cinematic example as there is for why the Brits make great allies.
9. Robert De Niro as Staff Sergeant Michael Vronsky in "The Deerhunter"
Staff Sergeant Vronsky is ballsy-as-pozz, especially during the Russian Roulette scenes. And good luck not yelling "hell yeah!" at the screen when he overpowers his VC captors and escapes. De Niro's performance is moving and feels authentic, and he does the special forces community proud while at the same time showing the sometimes tragic impact of war on a small town.
10. Tom Hanks as Captain John H. Miller in "Saving Private Ryan"
"Saving Private Ryan" did much toward dispelling the myth that World War II was somehow cleaner than the wars that followed, and that cinematic landscape is made all the more real by Tom Hanks' portrayal of Capt. John Miller, a school teacher-turned-war-weary-warfighter who knows the meaning of duty and leads by example. His on-screen sacrifice is truly felt and is a worthy representation of what earned The Greatest Generation their label.
11. Sterling Hayden as General Jack D. Ripper in "Dr. Strangelove"
This Cold War satirical masterpiece about B-52s gone wild by the orders of a lunatic wing commander is made pitch perfect by Sterling Hayden's performance as General Jack D. Ripper (get it?). From his musings about post-coitus epiphanies ("loss of essence," as he calls it) to his fears about the commie plot that is fluoridation, Hayden's Ripper should be funny enough to scare us all that he might actually exist (and have his finger on the button).
12. Jürgen Prochnow as Captain-Lieutenant Henrich Lehmann-Willenbrock in "Das Boot"
The U-boat war was a little-explored part of military movies until "Das Boot" was released in 1981. Jürgen Prochnow does an amazing job playing the captain of the submarine toward the end of the war. The crew is beat down and the Nazi rhetoric has long since rung hollow, but there is still a mission to carry out and a war to survive. Lehmann-Willenbrock is as good a leader as military movies have ever created, and his courage, skill, and empathy are timeless. Watch this one and find yourself routing for the other side. ("Das Boot" is best viewed in German with English subtitles, by the way.)
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