And a lack of volunteers who are “mad as fuck”, as Stirling claims he is. What if they created a parachute regiment, “answerable to no one”, to attack Nazi supply lines from the desert, rather than from the sea, where the allied forces can be seen coming? The only problem is a lack of parachutes and parachute training. You can see why Knight, who loves a self-made outsider as much as he loves a bloody dust-up, might be so drawn to the story.Īs the fascists are advancing in north Africa, Jock comes up with an idea for “a little experiment”. War has given them the liberty to behave like “the beasts that we are”, says Stirling, in a rousing if sozzled speech. These young men are reckless because they can be. Allen is Lt John Steele “Jock” Lewes, who barely flinches when bombs are dropped within feet of him. O’Connell is Lt Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne, who writes poetry and is, in the words of one of the sets of military police who try to imprison him, “a mental case”. Swindells is Lt Archibald David Stirling, who has daddy issues and a drink problem, and who likes to goad Australians in bars after winning on the horses. You can smash your senior officer’s head against a piano when he interrupts your chess game, and there’s every chance you’ll manage to wriggle, or more accurately, scrap yourself out of it. I’m no military expert, but I always assumed discipline was quite a big deal in these circles. It centres on the trio of Sex Education’s Connor Swindells, The North Water’s Jack O’Connell and Game of Thrones’ Alfie Allen, playing renegade soldiers who each combine a death wish with total disdain for any sense of hierarchy or authority. The swearing, the stencil-stamped title cards, the electric guitars: this is not your everyday war drama.Įnter television’s current favourite actors, ready to form a lads’ army of their own. Unless there is a drastic shift in tactics, it is looking like the allies are “fucked”. We begin with a convoy of trucks attempting to make its way from Cairo to the strategic port city of Tobruk, which doesn’t quite go to plan, before it drops into a quick catch-up about the state of the second world war at this point. Such myth-stoking only adds to the fascination, because the story that it does tell is frequently outrageous and often absurd.
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