10 War Films Where The Villain Kills The Hero
3. Too Late The Hero (1970)
Based on joint allied operations in the Pacific Theatre in 1942, Lieutenant Sam Lawson, Private Tosh Hearne and their unit are tasked with destroying a Japanese radio transmitter.
Their plan goes askew after Lawson refuses to obey Captain Hornby's orders, resulting in Hornby and Scott (the signalman) being killed and the unit is discovered.
Major Yamaguchi offers them an ultimatum: surrender or die. This causes a rift in the survivors; Lawson, Hearne and Jock do not believe they will be allowed to live, whilst Campbell, Griffiths and McLean believe surrender is their only option.
That night, the trio in favour of surrender kill Jock and make off into the jungle.
In a confrontation with the Japanese as Lawson and Hearne attempt to make their way back to the British base, they decide they are not going to go down without a fight. They turn and shoot Yamaguchi before sprinting for their lives. In a stylistic shot, both men collapse under the gunfire. One rises to their feet and staggers back to base, though the audience is initially left unaware as to who survived of the two.
We discover it is Hearne who survived and Lawson was killed by the hail of bullets, dying in his first and only taste of combat.