Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood have starred in some epic World War 2 movies over the years and now their sons Colin Hanks and Scott Eastwood have teamed up for their very own. Lucky Strike is a new action thriller set in 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge, the deadliest single battle for the US Army during the conflict with at least 81,000 casualties.
During those long five weeks of fighting in the bitter cold of the Ardennes, American troops were stranded behind enemy lines with communications breaking down due to the harsh winter. Screenwriter Marc Frydman based the script on an interview with a Battle of the Bulge veteran that he conducted when he was 16. He has rewritten it several times over the last 50 years.
In Lucky Strike, Eastwood stars as the fictional John Castle, a wounded lone survivor in that situation after his whole military unit is slaughtered by a Nazi ambush. Suddenly, all he has to rely on is a backpack containing a Motorola SCR-300 radio and a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, as he attempts to survive a 20-mile trek through the freezing Ardennes forest. All the while, he has to evade Panzer squads and SS patrols, as he gets closer and closer to safety.
Directed by Rod Davis Lurie, who previously filmed Eastwood in 2019’s The Outpost, the film was influenced by The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Von Ryan’s Express and The Great Escape.
Lucky Strike will be available to stream in the UK digitally on demand from August 10.