“Go for Broke” is an Old School
movie about the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The unit, which consisted of Nisei
volunteers, was the most decorated unit of its size and length of service in
the U.S. Army in WWII. The movie was
written and directed by Robert Pirosh.
Pirosh was a veteran of the war in Europe. He famously wrote the screenplay for
“Battleground”. His screenplay for “Go
for Broke” was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. The movie included many veterans from the 442nd,
including some of the main roles. It was
a box office success and was big in Japan of all places.
“Go for Broke” is a typical
small unit movie. It starts in training
camp, which is Camp Shelby in Mississippi in 1943. The platoon gets a new leader in Lt. Grayson (Van
Johnson). He looks like he has a turd
mustache as he scans his “Japs”. He
immediately requests a transfer. His
C.O. is a bleeding-heart liberal who does not take kindly to Grayson asking if
they use live ammunition on the rifle range.
(What an odd racist taunt!)
Grayson is clearly in need of redemption. His first visit to the barracks makes it
obvious that he is a racist martinet.
But he’s also Van Johnson, so you know that won’t last. Queue the training montage. Then it’s off to Italy. Grayson meets an Italian girl because there
has to be a female on the movie poster. Marching
and fighting montage. This leads up to a
nice combat scene highlighted by Tommy (Henry Nakamura) filling his helmet with
dirt and sticking a mortar tube in it to lob some shells. Can you do that? Then it’s off to France and the celebrated
rescue of the “Lost Battalion” (not that Lost Battalion).
“Go for Broke” is competently
done. It is above average for its
ilk. You can tell this partly because
the deaths are not the silly, touchdown signaling twirls that you normally see
in movies like this. In fact, it has
some heart-tugging deaths, which is appropriate for a unit that had a very high
casualty rate. The acting is
surprisingly good considering key roles went to amateurs who were veterans of
the unit. Van Johnson is his usual
reliable self. Young ladies, he was the
George Clooney of that era! Tommy has a
pig that gives one of the best performances by a pig in a war movie.
“Go for Broke” follows the small
unit template closely. Grayson is the
leader who warms to his charges. There is
a core group that includes a malcontent.
You would be upset too if you had to leave your lucrative chicken-sexing
job to join the Army. That’s right,
Chick (George Miki) was making $500 a month determining the sex of newborn
chicks. It turns out Nisei soldiers have
similar banter as other soldiers. They
also have humorous moments like in other Old School WWII movies, except that
some of it is actually funny. Not LOL,
of course. Some of the humor comes from
Grayson narrating from travel pamphlets as they move through picturesque Italy
and France. Nice touch.
The script is a bit odd. There are only allusions to the internment of
the Nisei families so there is little irony in the film. Actually, the movie starts with an
unintentially ironic quote from FDR about how “Americanism is a matter of mind
and heart”, not race! I wonder what the
442nd veterans thought of that.
You don’t really end up with a feeling of shame when you watch the
film. The movie also strangely
short-changes the unit’s sterling record.
You get little impression why it was so decorated. The action scenes are good, but not big. For instance, the rescue of the “Lost
Battalion” is nothing special and does not do a good job showing the extremely
difficult nature of the battle. The
movie concentrates too much on the conventional redemption arc of Grayson and
not enough on the achievements of the unit.
Still, it’s a likeable movie and you can’t say they blew their chance to
recognize the unit.
GRADE = B
HOW HISTORICALLY ACCURATE IS IT? The 442nd was recruited
mostly from Nisei living in Hawaii.
(It’s sister unit, the 100th Battalion, was mainly from the
mainland camps.) The men did refer to
themselves as “Buddhaheads”. The motto
of the unit was “Go for Broke” which in the movie is said to mean “shoot the
works”. They were trained at Camp Shelby
where the Nisei were shocked to witness segregation of blacks. They landed at Naples and participated in the
Anzio campaign. In the move northward,
they fought in numerous skirmishes. They
captured Hill 140 which became known as “Little Cassino”. The unit was shipped to Southern France and
it was back into heavy action in the forests of France. Its most famous exploit was the rescue of a
unit that had been cut off by the Germans.
It took a week to break through to the “Lost Battalion” and the 442nd
suffered heavy casualties in their frontal attacks. Unlike the movie, the conditions were a
mixture of rain, snow, and mud. The
movie does not touch on the controversy of the unit being used as cannon fodder
by Gen. Dahlquist. After this blooding,
the unit was shifted to the Riviera where it enjoyed several weeks of light
action. The men referred to this as the
“Champagne Campaign”. In March, 1945
most of the unit was sent back to Italy to help assault the Gothic Line. Talk about a change of venue! They had been specifically requested by Gen.
Mark Clark. The 442nd
excelled in the hill fighting that pushed the Germans back in the closing weeks
of the war. The unit returned to America
having been awarded eight Presidential Unit Citations (one of which is shown by
way of footage of Pres. Truman in the film).
One soldier, Sadao Munemori, was a posthumous Medal of Honor recipient
for jumping on a grenade. (In 2000,
twenty other members were upgraded to Medals of Honor.)
Thank you for providing historical information on this unit. It is always interesting when the facts are more sensational than the film. My guess is that the film wanted to emphasize that the Japanese-American soldiers were ordinary Americans with familiar values and culture.
ReplyDeleteIf that was the goal the movie succeeds very well. If it was remade, I would hope the new movie would go for the same general approach while highlighting the unit's proudest achievements.