Director/Screenplay – Robbie ‘Steed’ Davidson, Producers – Jeffrey J. Ellen & Jared Young, Photography – Ian Gordon, Alexander Henderson, R.A. Hunter & Robbie Davidson, Music – Scott Buckley, Special Effects – Steed. Production Company – Square Go Films.
Cast
Snars (Dick Dynamite), Olly Bassi (Colonel Maximillion Schtacker), Adam Harper (Officer Wakowski), Graham Scott (Sturmnitz), Valerie Birss (Agent Jennings), Shaun Davidson (Roger ‘Dash’ Dalton), Marrakesh Burdette (Franky ‘Brooklyn’ Janette), Craig Costello (Mother Fucker), A.F. Moore (Napalm Jeff), Brian Jamieson (Lucas from Tucas), Lefty (Tam the Bam), Irvine Welsh (Mikhail Leznik), Dick Valentine (Commander Eagles Cairnie), Vic Galloway (Dr Proctor)
Plot
June, 1944. British soldier Dick Dynamite has been captured and is sentenced to be executed by the Americans for excessive brutality on the battlefield. Instead, he is offered a deal to go into German territory on a suicide mission and destroy the Nazi’s new Amerika Bomber. Dick gathers a ragtag team of misfits and they head into Nazi territory, killing all Germans they come across. There Dick and his team come up against Colonel Maximillion Schtacker who is masterminding the Wunderwaffe program to produce an army of zombies.
Dick Dynamite: 1944 was the feature film debut for Scottish director Robbie ‘Steed’ Davidson, who has appeared in several punk and metal bands and made a couple of short films before this. The film was made on a budget of £10,000 raised via Kickstarter. Davidson even managed to convince high-profile Scottish author Irvine Welsh, best known for Trainspotting (1996), to turn up in a cameo as a Russian officer.
On one level, Dick Dynamite is a parody of a certain square-jawed brand of British military heroism. The British boys’ story of valorous heroism in World War II was a staple of the 1970s. When I grew up, there were plentiful comics like Commando (1961- ) that told stories about heroic military combat during World War II, and even parody figures of that like Captain Hurricane. Equally there is the tradition of the ragtag team assembled to do a dirty mission, which is more a cinematic one than a comic-book one, popularised in films like The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Dirty Dozen (1967) and Kelly’s Heroes (1970) to more recent offerings such as Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024).
Dick Dynamite takes all of these and winds them up to a level of gonzo parody. It is a film that is pitched at a level of entertainingly absurd ridiculousness – where you feel that it should more appropriately be directed in comic-book onomatopoeia and speech balloons – along with a high degree of Splatter.
Snars in action as Dick Dynamite
The film also borrows from a number of other Nazisploitation genres – there are Nazi zombies, which have been around since Shock Waves (1977), Oasis of the Zombies (1981), Zombies’ Lake (1981) and Night of the Zombies (1981), gaining popularity in recent years with Outpost (2007) and Dead Snow (2009). There is even a variant on the Flying Wing that was introduced in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) – and it actually gets to fly this time! Robbie ‘Steed’ Davidson even borrows the flickering sprockets and broken frames look patented by Grindhouse (2007).
Dick Dynamite is an enormous amount of fun. It is totally Politically Incorrect and all the more enjoyable for it. I particularly liked the Scots member of the troupe who goes into action with subtitled dialogue where “Fuckin’ Hell” comes out translated into English as “Good Heavens,” and his roars of pain become “Scottish for ‘ouch’.” It is a film where Robbie ‘Steed’ Davidson and the cast all get the madcap gonzo tone down perfectly and without a step out of place.
The actor known only as Snars, who appears to have no other information about him outside of this film, has the perfectly physique and cartoonish pose for the role. What kept dragging me out of it though was that when Snars opened his mouth, he speaks with what sounds like Germanic or a Scandinavian accent making Dick Dynamite sounds exactly like of the Germans he so readily slaughters the entire way through the film.
