2015's War Pigs, directed by Ryan Little, takes place towards the end of the Second world War. Here we meet Lieutenant Jack Wosick (Luke Goss) an officer still mourning the loss of his best friend, Sergeant McGreevy (Chuck Liddell) when their mission turned south. If his recent track record isn't so hot, Wosick is nevertheless chosen by Major Redding (Mickey Rourke) to put together a team of tough guys for a mission that will take them behind enemy lines in France. Why? So that they can find out if the stories about the Nazi's really have developed a high tech missile launcher like some intelligence reports are indicating. If they have, it could shift the tide of the war.

Wosick enlists the aid of Hans Picault (Dolph Lundgren), a French Foreign Legion officer who has defected from the German side due to his disagreements with Hitler's plans. Hans helps Wosick train his dirty half dozen, dubbed the ‘War Pigs' (played by Noah Segan, Steven Luke, Jake Stormoen, Ryan Kelley, K.C. Clyde and Apostolos Gliarmis) so that when it comes time, they'll be prepared to fight against seemingly insurmountable odds to not only find out the truth about the fabled missile launcher, but maybe even live to fight another day. But not even the finest training can prepare this rag-tag crew of allied soldiers for what they will eventually square off against.

Yeah, it definitely owes a bit to the legendary The Dirty Dozen, a lot of war movies do, so it's maybe not a bad idea going into this one to keep that in mind. The story (which is credited to Adam Emerson, Andrew Kightlinger and Steven Luke) is riddled with clichés and doesn't really seem too concerned with trying to take the audience into uncharted territory. Familiarity is the order of the day, from the set up to the obligatory training sequences (which are unusually long and hurt the film's pacing) down to the finale of the mission itself. You've seen this all before and you've seen it done with more energy and more creativity than you'll see on display in War Pigs.

Now, having ragged on the movie for those hard-to-miss flaws, is it worth seeing? Yeah, it has its moments. Period detail isn't necessarily a strong point, you' don't always believe these guys are World War II era soldiers based on their haggard appearances and attitudes, but despite that the cast are pretty good. Rourke is definitely the right guy to play the elder officer, he's just got that used up look about him that makes him believable as a guy who has seen a lot of action in his years. Lundgren is also fun, and while his German accent isn't the world's most convincing job, he's as amusing as ever to watch as he tries to get these younger men whipped into the kind of shape his more experienced soldier knows they're going to need to be in. These two are underused, however. They get enough screen time to count and to matter but you're left wanting more from them. This leaves Luke Goss to do most of the heavy lifting as the lead, and he proves capable enough to pull it off.

Additionally the production values are pretty good here. The battle scenes, once we get to them, are nicely choreographed and genuinely tense and the movie benefits from some more than decent camera work from Ty Arnold and a solid, evocative score composed by Alex Kharlamov. A bit more spit and polish in the scripting and pacing department definitely would have gone a long way towards making this one a lot more memorable than it is but as it stands, in this form, War Pigs is an entertaining enough diversion and a decent enough time killer.

Video:

War Pigs hits Blu-ray in 1.78.1 in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. Shot digitally, there's obviously no print damage. Detail is good from start to finish on this transfer and color reproduction is fine. There are some spots where the contrast is blown out to give certain scenes a hot look but this works in the context of the story being told. Are no problems with compression artifacts or edge enhancement and color reproduction and black levels are strong.