I love this movie so much

Redundant and unnecessary.

Perfect cast and a good story

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It's a British Army prison in WWII North Africa. Insubordinate British soldiers are sent there to be drilled ruthlessly. One of the tasks is to run up and down a man made hill. Joe Roberts (Sean Connery) is one of five new prisoners. He had punched his commanding officer for ordering a suicidal attack.There are some great performances. The most powerful coming from Harry Andrews. Everybody is delivering top level stuff. It's a contained movie in that it's contained by the base. In that way, it's more like a play. Sidney Lumet allows his actors to chew up the screen. It's great.

Sent to a North African military British prison for the slightest infraction, a group of men find that the enemy outside the prison is preferable to the brutish British men "rehabilitating" them. This expose of hypocritical behavior during a time when freedom was worth dying for shows the monsters weren't all fighting for Hitler, Mussolini or Hirohito. It's an expose of corruption occurring when the wrong people are put in charge, turning everyone who works for them into animals. That is an interesting take on the genre of movies set during World War II, warning of the dangers of power corrupting, making me wonder how prisoners of war would be treated under such corruption by so-called allies. With a cast lead by Sean Connery and Harry Andrews, this is war drama in a different kind of disturbing way, showing the worst kind of mistreatment possible, and with the glee of those barking orders. Those orders have all of the prisoners running up and down a steep hill covered in sand under the blazing desert heat. The black and white photography makes the hill even more sinister looking, and closeups of the men as they face their first encounter with the hill confirms the difficult task they perform over and over, not only running up and down, but slinging heavy sandbags as well. It's like a slow occurring death, not only excruciatingly exhausting, but emotionally and mentally torturous as well. Director Sidney Lumet strikes a cord as do Andrews as the evil warden and Ossie Davis as a British subject from the West Indies who is treated with even more disdain because of his skin color.

Sidney Lumet's The Hill is a stark, uncompromising look at the inside of a British military prison in North Africa during WW II. The all-male film, based on Ray Rigby's autobiographical play, is about the brutal mistreatment of prisoners by the screws at a stockade for court-martialed British soldiers.The titular 'hill' is a monstrous man-made pile of sand seared by the blazing sun, to be used as a means of punishment in the blistering heat. A sadistic martinet Major Bert Wilson (Harry Andrews) runs the show here with an aim to break the soldier-prisoners down and then build them up to return as soldiers. His fascist method of discipline is to have the inmates clambering with full kit in the heat up and down the dreaded hill even if they are exhausted, as part of a punishment designed more to break a man's spirit rather than provide corrective treatment. The screenplay puts the spotlight on a new bunch of five new prisoners, one of whom is the hard-mouthed tank-man Roberts (Sean Connery). Together, they form an eclectic mix but all have one thing in common: they are terrorized by Sergeant Williams (Ian Hendry), a particularly sadistic new guard chosen by Major Wilson, who relishes the task of marching the men up and down the hill and watching them suffer. When Williams goes too far and causes the death of on the five men due to heat stroke, it sparks off a mutiny and Roberts decides to lodge a charge of murder against Williams. The stage is thus set for a dramatic and riveting confrontation, thrusting the drama to its bruising, ironic end.In this long and unrelenting documentation of life in a military stockade, Sidney Lumet comes up with the sobering revelation that inhumanity is not unique with the enemy, in his own inimitable style. The cinematography is superlative as Oswald Morris shoots the film in monochromatic hues, making you feel parched from minute one. The acting is also top-notch. Harry Andrews is devastating as the sergeant major that runs the camp - a taut, controlled administrator who is a professional military man and Ian Hendry is brilliantly sinister as the evil sergeant who precipitates the crisis. Connery tears up the screen as the rebellious inmate, giving an intelligently restrained performance, carefully avoiding forced histrionics. Ossie Davis gets some of the best scenes and plays them superbly.'The Hill' is a harsh, sadistic and brutal entertainment, made without any concessions to officialdom - among the best of the sub-genre has to offer.

Sidney Lumet directed this stark military drama set in a North African military prison, where five new prisoners arrive to face the harsh conditions imposed on them by the authorities(played with varying sympathy by Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen, & Ian Hendry) Sean Connery plays Trooper Joe Roberts,the leader of this group of prisoners, whose crimes run the range from theft to insubordination. All prisoners are forced to repeatedly climb an artificial hill in the middle of camp under the fierce desert sun, which of course will lead to some heatstroke and death. Joe does what can to retain his self-respect, and fight back against any abuse... Powerful film isn't that easy to sit through at times, and its quick editing style is certainly different, leading to an abrupt and bleak ending. Still, the performances are superb, and film memorable, if little-known.