| Director | Enzo G. Castellari |
|---|---|
| Genre | action film, adventure film, comedy film, thriller film, war film |
| Runtime | 99 min |
| Country | Italy |
In France in 1944, American soldiers Berle, a deserter; Nick Colasanti, a petty thief; Fred, nicknamed "Assassin"; Tony, a mutineer; and Lieutenant Yeager (arrested for refusing to comply with orders to kill, among others, women and children) are sentenced to death for their crimes and are shipped to a prisoners' camp near the Ardennes.
During the journey to the camp, the five criminals take advantage of a flat tire and a Luftwaffe air raid to escape. Yeager takes command and plans to defect to neutral Switzerland.
The group stops at an abandoned French factory to rest and replenish their supplies. They capture a German soldier hiding in the building who tells the group he is also a convicted criminal sentenced to death and on the run. Despite the desire of Tony and Fred to kill him, Yeager takes him along in case the Nazis attack again.
The group meets a German patrol, and the captured soldier immediately proves helpful, convincing the patrol the Americans are his prisoners. They kill some of the German soldiers and escape. When the group encounters German nurses bathing in a river, Nick suggests they pretend to be German soldiers. The nurses realize the men are Americans when they see Fred and start shooting at them. Tony, Nick, Berle and Fred escape to a nearby camp.
When German soldiers arrive at the camp, Yeager sends the captured German to talk to them. The captured German discovers the group are actually Americans disguised as Germans and is killed trying to alert Yeager's group. Yeager's group return fire and kill the disguised Americans, who had been ordered to carry out an important espionage mission. With no other option, Colonel Buckner assigns Yeager's group the task instead.
When Fred and Buckner are captured, Yeager, Tony, a French resistance fighter named Berle and Nick attack a Nazi fortification and free them. Colonel Buckner then explains the mission to destroy an armored train shipping a prototype of the V-2 missile.
During their attack, Nick is unable to contact the others and is killed. Berle is killed by the train driver, and when all hope of succeeding seems lost, Lieutenant Yeager blows up the train with himself on board, destroying the missiles and the station assaulted by the Nazis.
Fred, wounded, escapes into the countryside. Colonel Buckner also survives along with Tony, who returns to Nicole.