Dead Men Can't Dance

This product of the Phillipines was made by people who have absolutely no understanding of US Army Ranger training and operations. It explains why it is the worst piece of drivel a few noteworthy actors and actresses have put into their acting careers. I think the few 10 votes here must have been from the makers of this film.

You should know that direct-to-DVD movies about the military are going to be full of tired cliché's. This one put just about every single one I can think of in the mix.

Kathleen York has an Oscar nomination for Crash, but it is for the music. Stick to that because we don't need another G.I. Jane. especially one that gets a Ranger badge just for being slapped a couple of times.

Michael Biehn (Aliens, The Terminator) was her love interest and probably the best thing about this flick. At least he appeared to know something about being military.

R. Lee Ermey (Full Metal Jacket) made an excellent slimy Senator, and I always enjoy Grace Zabriskie ("Big Love").

I guess there is a good reason I have not seen anything before this that was directed by Stephen Milburn Anderson or written by Paul Sinor. It is not likely that I ever will except by accident.

I caught this movie on television on a Saturday afternoon and the thing that caught my eye was the "artistic license" taken on military details. While I know that movies require a certain suspension of disbelief, I was aghast by the aggregious inaccuracies in this movie. The movie depicts a squad of female Army Rangers on a covert mission inside of North Korea. While there is no such thing as female Rangers in the US Army, I would be able to overlook that little detail if it were not for the fact that they looked absolutely silly in a hodge-podge of military acoutrements that they were forced to wear. The costume person on this one should be ashamed of themselves. How much time, effort, or money does it take to research the basics of military uniform? From the Ranger tabs sewn onto their black berets, to their camoflauge t-shirts. I honestly thought this movie was a comedy at first. I was shocked to see Michael Biehn and R. Lee Ermey in this. You would think that both would have insisted on a certain degree of accuracy.

"Dead Men Can't Dance" is a film that relies heavily on other films, interweaving plot conflicts and cliches that we've seen a million times before into one motion picture. However, the ones they use to combine work nicely: A small all-women platoon fights its way through Vietnam, trying to figure out which among them are spies and which in the government are the villians working alongside the enemy. Sure, we've seen it all before, but in order for a film like this to work, it must take the cliches seriously and make sure they flow and interlap smoothly. This film does that, and it knows how to make them work. After all, this is a movie trying to be an action flick, not a serious approach to the Vietnam War.

The cast is generally good- Michael Biehn, Mark Edward Anderson, and Adrian Paul stand out as the men trying to lead the women to victory, and most of the women, played by a bunch of unknowns, are well played. Its almost as if all the actors know that their characters are paper-thin and designed to be cardboard cutouts, and they choose to have fun with it. This factor helps tremendously.

However, despite these pluses, the film as a whole is extremely poor. The camera work is shoddy, and the production values are terrible. It looks as if it was filmed with a cam corder most of the time, and the synthesizer music only adds to its cheeziness. Some directors can hide a low budget (1993's "Fortress" is a good example). This guy, however, cannot. The results are an impressive, if overused, plot with lousy details around it. And if you don't have the visuals mastered in war films, you don't have anything.

*1/2 out of ****

I wanted so much to like a movie staring my two favorite actors--Adrian Paul and Michael Biehn. I'm not your crazed fan type. . .but somehow these two men have stuck in my imagination. Both have (for the most part) appeared in works with good scripts and intelligent characters.

Why this turkey? The story line-- women saving a male black ops team in Korea-- was painful. The film looked as if it had been shot with an old 8mm on a budget of $1.95.

I hope my favorite guys had a good time or got paid a lot of money. It was painful to watch.