Canadian commando leader Bridges makes a disaster out of a raid, but is given a second chance to destroy a German naval facility on the French coast.

Average war film takes it's time to get going, but once the action starts is decent enough. Never rises above the usual stereotypes of such films, though, and the ending is rushed and unsatisfying. The main problem is Bridges' character, who, though he has an epiphany, is at the outset such an arrogant and incompentent oaf that it's impossible to accept him as a leader of a latrine-digging detail, let alone an elite commando unit. The scriptwriters also did not seem to understand that a naval captain far outranks an army major; the scenes of Bridges yelling at Keir like a baby throwing a tantrum are painful. The wine-swilling, stag film-watching Germans on display here are such paper-thin caricatures they make the Hogan's Heroes Nazis look like an SS death squad. Incidentally, the German HQ is a reuse of the part of the Dirty Dozen chateau that wasn't blown up at the climax of that film.

Based on the real 1942 St. Nazaire raid, which was much better depicted in The Gift Horse, which is also a much better film.