City Commando

I think this movie was hilarious simply because of how serious it was. from the heavy-handed acting to the comedically badly choreographed fight scenes, to the outlandish scenario to the completely unrealistic portrayal of city gang violence, this movie made me and my friends laugh our butts off. when Roy Boy shouts "YOU MOTHERRSSSS!!!" we couldn't stop laughing. the front of the box features a team of steroidal, rambo-type Vietnam soldiers wielding flamethrowers and assault rifles, and yet there is only maybe 5 minutes of Vietnam scenes in the movie. not to mention i never witnessed any real annihilation. maybe some destruction, a few murders, some depravity, but no annihilation. no sir. I'm not calling this a good movie. just an unintentionally hilarious time capsule of C-moviedom from the 80's. if you can find it, for god's sakes buy it. it's a good time.

What can I say about the Annhilators. From the fine film editing (overlooked at the Oscars in my opinion) to the first rate in your face acting. The Annhilators is high caliber pure 80's cheesefest. This is one of the few movies that I've seen in which every single scene has an unintentionally funny scene. I could go on quoting and quoting, but it's really up to you and your friends to rip this puppy apart. 10 years after first viewing you still won't forget this movie.

There were batches of such craps during the eighties, more or less DEATH WISH descendants but without any shade, predictable at the most. The scene in the grocery store, with the hoodlums killing the war vet in the wheel chair, this scene is brutal, gritty, for me the most worth seeing sequence. However, it remains an agreeable time waster if you have really nothing else to do. I regret to have wasted my time with this forgettable flick; I also regret the late seventies vigilante movies such as the William Lustig or Lewis Teague's programmers. Only for die hard fans for this kind of junk, also old timers and certainly not the new generations.

After a former brother-in-arms from Vietnam is killed by a gang of thugs his former platoon leader is recruited to clean up the streets. He summons the rest of the squad and the game is on.

The story is simple and has been done several times before. There is a relatively short first part that takes place in Vietnam to establish the relationship between the soldiers. I really wish they had spent another ten minutes building on this to give the rest of the film a deeper emotional impact. Sure this is a 80s vigilante film, but that doesn't mean we can't have characters we really care about. Does it? The vigilante force also teaches the neighborhood how they can defend themselves in a montage. And who doesn't enjoy a good montage? This montage is mediocre, but that's okay. The Annihilators could easily have been mistaken for the A-Team. They aren't that professional and they are slightly more violent. Other than that they are just the same. In fact there is at least on A-Team episode exactly like this film. One of the highlights in this film is the gang leader. He looks like a shabby Kurt Russell and when he wears that wonderful pink t-shirt you won't exactly tremble with fear. The guy has balls though. At one point he walks around in the middle of the street with a flamethrower yelling that he wants his drugs back. NOW! It's hilarious stuff! How he became a gang leader is anyone's guess. He isn't a very good leader and his minions are even less capable of anything. They are crappy stereotypes, which I suppose is only what one can expect from a movie like this. On the positive side, this only adds to the overall cheese factor.

Now the thing that really annoyed me about The Annihilators is the title. It's called THE ANNIHILATORS! The definition of annihilate in the Oxford dictionary is; to destroy completely. Our vigilante squad frequently just hurt the gang members. Only towards the end do we see a somewhat steady rise in bodies. However, they are still merely shot. At least director Charles E. Sellier Jr. could have had the decency to give us some Peckinpah or Woo style shootings. And even then I doubt they could have called themselves The Annihilators with pride. Now had they taken out the scumbags with rocket launchers, claymore mines or such, the whole affair would have looked a lot different!

I could go on about all the things The Annihilators isn't, but that would be unfair to it. For all its faults The Annihilators provide some entertainment, mostly in the cheese department. Grab some recreational drugs, a pizza and watch with friends.

After their wheelchair bound brother in arms Joe is killed by a gang in Atlanta, Vietnam vets Bill (Christopher Stone), Ray (Gerrit Graham), Garrett (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) and Woody (Andy Wood) come to the city to teach the citizens how to stand up for themselves. Their main adversary is Roy Boy (Paul Koslo), who is working on a big heroin deal and tries to keep the local kids on his payroll. Our four Vietnam vigilantes also have to contend with Lt. Hawkins (Jim Antonio), who wants things done by the book. This is a serviceable entry in the citizen vigilante sub-genre. The problem is that there are so many classics in that field that this could never really compare. Director Charles Sellier had just come off of SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT so it is surprising this isn't sleazier. The main characters are lazily outlined (we barely know each of their specialties a la THE A-TEAM) and we get a really amusing training montage for the citizens that lasts about a minute. There is also a really bungled mystery regarding a fifth member called "Holdout Harry." Still, I was never bored and the film did provide a few laughs (especially the random school bus hostage taking during the finale).