Hell is for Heroes is a unique war movie. It doesn’t play up war in the least. There is no significant objective mentioned. No general provides us with a clue of strategy. There’s just a squad of men hoping to go home and not face the terror of being on the line. That hope is dashed, along with the private plans the soldiers have made. The men are sent to the front. They don’t know why. They don’t really care. They just want to survive. Only a few of the men are fully up to the task of being a soldier. But Hell is for Heroes shows how most of the soldiers are out of their element. In case the cruel comedy of this is somehow lost on the audience, we are given Private Driscoll. Played by comedian Bob Newhart with his now well-known deadpan delivery, Pvt. Driscoll blunders onto the front with a jeep full of typewriters, a clerk plunged abruptly into the life-and-death struggle on the front line. All the men are trying to make the best decisions that their own experiences have given them. But with its unrelenting deadly nature, war is cruel, taking any decision and turning it into one that cost lives. Hell is for Heroes’ message is that war is men killing and dying. And not much else.
