Secret défense

Every film student should watch "The Chaos Factor" as a study in how to take a pretty good premise, write and direct it poorly, and come away with an uneven, not very satisfying film.

War crimes were committed in 1972 in Cambodia. The bad guys thought they covered their tracks, but a diary turns up in 1999. Then the fun and action begins. Too bad it wasn't written better.

Too many memories of the Viet-Nam War have gone unresolved and thus the United States of America continues to pay with it's Vetrans having nightmares. This is one such painful memory, the movie is called " The Chaos Factor " and is perhaps reminiscent of the many black sins involved in the entire war. Capt. Jack Poynt (Antonio Sabato Jr.) is a military intelligent Officer who is assigned to duty in Viet-Nam. While there his primary task is to locate and destroy land minds and any other artifact which is believed to be U.S. property. What he discovers instead is a personal soldier's diary depicting a secret and covert operation in which Viet-Namese national were captured, tortured, murdered and subjected to chemical toxins. All this under the direction of one Col. Max Camden (Fred Ward) and the men of his special task force. Learning of the illegal top secret mission, Capt. Poynt seeks to bring these men to justice only to discover a whole level of the military would rather destroy him and the journal than to have it resurface in the press. R.Lee Ermey, Sean Kanan and Susie as a female assassin help to commit the cast. A good, dramatic and action pack film and one with few flaws. One easily recommended to an audience member who wants to learn of one mortal sin committed by our military. ****

One of my pet peeves is watching a movie where someone rips off a really good premise, like Enemy of the State, and botches it.

Same idea: a guy (Antonio Sabato Jr.) finds a long buried secret that could destroy an extremely powerful politician and suddenly the guy is prey to the powers that be.

Most glaringly apparent plot hole: Antonio's character is in the Army and could have been easily detained by his superiors with just one phone call from the powerful politician. Instead, the bad guy who works for the politician (and former CIA/military man, as usual), tries to blow him up, kills two of his friends and kidnaps him with the intent of torturing him for information. Luckily, he's saved by a Chinese secret agent (Susie Park in the best portrayal of a female agent in tight black leather since Charlie's Angels) and together they expose the evil plot to eradicate the Asian race.

I liked Susie Park's character. She is a cold blooded killer (which she plainly states) and martial artist that can trade punches with the best of the bad guys and she doesn't have a problem using bondage on Antonio (ooh, hot flash). She can also take a punch in the face and, as she recovers, coolly flip her hair at her aggressor. Now that's one cool customer!

Sorry, I just realized that I'm making this movie sound good...it isn't. There are 2 too many cars chases (if you've seen this movie you'll find that extremely funny) and the characters are one dimensional. I only have one question: who gives these people money to make this kind of garbage? They must have had one hell of a pitch-man to get this one made.

My one word summary: Ugh!

This film appears to be a poor quality remake of 'The Odessa File', with fewer ideas. The main characters are unpleasant, you don't care about any of them, and what was the Chinese girl upto anyway. Not worth watching.

"Chaos Factor" - maybe not the title I would have chosen, but it really was a pretty good movie. I thought that Sabato did a good job and I really like Fred Ward too. Sabato's character was a decent guy who was destined to make the right decision at the right time. The action and stunts were good and I thought the locations were believable. His decision to do the right thing, however was predictable, rather than blindly follow military protocol and cover-up the wrongdoing of a few bad apples over 20+ years prior.

I also liked the fact that I could watch this movie with my 10 year old son. There was very little, if any, vulgar language and the love scenes were left to the imagination which makes it easier watching was kids. Overall, I think this movie is worth the time and money!