"The love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Timothy 6:10)
Never has a biblical quotation been more appropriate for a film. In the dying
days of World War II, a fortune in 31 gold bars becomes the obsession of
various groups of people, each convinced that the treasure belongs to them.
Their greed will ultimately cost them their lives.
Heinrich, a German soldier who's deserted the army, has more important things
on his mind. His wife and son have been killed in an air raid, but his young
daughter has survived. All he wants is to get home to her. Unfortunately, he
encounters a particularly nasty group of SS soldiers led by the fanatical and
rather unhinged von Starnfeld. Left hanging from a tree, Heinrich is rescued
by Elsa, a young farmer who has little love for the Nazis herself.
Meanwhile, von Starnfeld is obsessed with finding the 31 gold bars supposedly
hidden beneath the ruins of a Jewish family's former home. He has no intention
of letting anything, including the approaching Allied armies, distract him
from his prize. His second-in-command, Dörfler, is rather more practical, but
he too has an unhealthy interest in the treasure.
The villagers aren't much better. The mayor, a thoroughly despicable Nazi, and
his accomplices have their own history with the gold. They were responsible
for robbing the Jewish family during the Kristallnacht pogrom and burning down
their home. The local priest, however, has a nobler motive. He's removed the
treasure from the coffin where it was hidden, determined that the mayor and
his associates should never get their hands on it.
As the hunt intensifies, the body count rises. Paule, Elsa's brother, becomes
a victim of the SS's brutality. His desperate attempt to defend himself ends
in tragedy when von Starnfeld shoots him. Heinrich and Elsa, meanwhile, find
themselves caught up in an increasingly bloody struggle in which the gold
changes hands, loyalties are tested and practically everyone seems prepared to
kill for a few more bars.
The priest, the mayor, the SS officers and the villagers all pay a heavy price
for their involvement. Even when the treasure is finally within reach, there's
no shortage of people willing to betray and murder one another to get it. And
the greed doesn't end with the Germans. When the Americans finally encounter
the scattered gold, their reaction provides one last, rather amusing twist to
the proceedings.
I don't normally enjoy war films, but "Blood & Gold" is a brilliant
exception. It has the atmosphere of a grindhouse production, something that's
already apparent during the opening credits. Director Peter Thorwarth delivers
outrageous violence, dark humour, memorable characters and some wonderfully
inventive action.
It's certainly not a conventional World War II film, and that's precisely what
makes it so entertaining.
