5/5 A phrase you don't hear much these days...
  by Donald Hawthorne (Fairfax Station, Virginia, USA)
... is "tour de force", and that's exactly what we have, all around, in this film.
I was very young when I first saw this movie, hacked as it was by TV censors, but not too badly, since it was playing on CBS' early forays into Late Night broadcasting in the mid-1970's.
I had recently seen "Cool Hand Luke", and read Donn Pearce's novel, and to say this movie is nearly identical in concept is to damn it with faint praise. As with the American story set in a Florida prison, "The Hill"'s location in the middle of some godforsaken British desert colony makes the omnipresent heat a major character in the driving of the plot; the sun is simultaneously distant and omnipresent, and just as merciless as Morgan Woodward's "Man With No Eyes" in "Cool Hand Luke". You can crack a sweat just watching the prisoners humping up and down that damned hill in full battle kit under the desert sun.
Anyone could go crazy after enough time in the stockade of "The Hill", and pretty much every one of the camp guards and administrators already have, one way or another. Throwing prisoners into this place is guaranteed to produce results of some sort, and there is absolutely no confusion about whether such an institution's purpose is to provide "rehabilitation" as oppoesed to "punishment". If anyone survives their sentence to be released, it's a safe bet they will not return, even if it means being shot for desertion.
Every performance in this film is, in a word, flawless. Even cliched plot elements pass by with seamless credibility, owing to the perfromances of cast members whose roles are so well portrayed, you forget you are watching some of the finest character actors in cinema.
It's great to finally be able to see this movie again; it holds up beautifully, as the issues it addresses are timeless. "The Hill" could have been set against the backdrop of the Roman Legions, and would be no less compelling.
Enjoy! ... but keep a bottle of cold water nearby.

5/5 "And if I Only Could, I'd Make A Deal With God.."
  by Paul Ess. (Holywell, N.Wales,UK.)
'The Hill' is a thirsty drama set at a prison-camp for allied troops in WW2 North Africa.
It's where all the dregs end up: the tea-leafs, the insubordinates, the shell-shocked, the AWOLs, the scared...
There are no punishment blocks, no floggings, no forced square-bashing - what they have is The Hill; a peak of sand and rocks which the naughty boys have to run up and down in the blazing heat wearing full pack.
Until they drop.

Run by a belligerent RSM, his sycophantic lackeys and a weak medical officer acting as C.O, the camp is no place for anybody except the wired and the fierce.
Punishment is arbitrary, unjust and relentless; blind obedience and discipline the only escape.

So the status quo gets jolly excited when Sgt. Joe Roberts turns up as part of an influx of prisoners. Roberts violently disagreed with an officer trying to give him orders; The Hill was custom-made for him.

His co-arrivals are a pathetic bunch: the bully, the fat-boy, the whimpering 'family man,' the ethnic, the humanitarian..
All have their weaknesses detected, rounded on, and callously exploited. Each tiny chink in the armour is ruthlessly prised open to form gaping, damaging psychological lesions..
The bully is given loyalty conundrums, the fat-boy strenuous assault-course exercise, the effeminate family man is run up and down The Hill until he drops....dead.
The only constant, apparent within the abused and the beleaguered, is that they're all linked to The Hill.
Who breaks? In war, no-one can win...?

'The Hill' is a horror movie; one of the most pure, desperate and challenging it's possible to imagine. It features bogey-men, sadism, conspiracy, despair, death, abandonment - and most horrifically - a graphic portrayal of the most evil act of all: the organisational transformation of free-thinking individuals into drones by an almost Biblically 'old order' military philosophy, choking on its own antiquated history.

It's superbly cast, brilliantly shot in b/w, and there's no music score; the main title is simply a bleak Ariel Narrow imposed over trudging, weary
marching-steps, barked orders and the clanging of gates.
Do not, under any circumstances, miss 'The Hill'.

5/5 Perihelion of a Career
  by neotroglodyte (desert southwest)
Connery's finest film.
See it with the subtitles, as the barking is unintelligible, otherwise.
This is strictly a man's film.


5/5 Beyond a Prison Movie
  by Vera Bergen (Manchester NH, USA)
This is a prison movie that transcends being a prison movie. Its true subject is the mystery of human beings relationship to the power of authority which is the consummate mystery of the 20th century that has leeched into the 21st. Sean Connery is marvelous as expected, but if you have never seen Harry Andrews get his teeth into a role, you will be astounded. The mystery is illuminated but remains intact.

4/5 Try your subtitles!
  by B. Little (Hamden CT, USA)
My mom's a Brit and I thought I could decode any dialect from the UK. But the combination of 1960's miking and mumbled slang make this a real chore. By turning on the subtitles I was able to uncover critical dialogue that likely has evaded viewers of this film for decades...give it a try.