Act of Honor - L'unité War Pigs

Dolph and his crew of misfits are actually a good fit ... for war. It's one of those B-movies that have a war theme. It's not really a movie that has many mysteries about it. Dolph has to coach a crew of people who no one else wants and from that starting point you pretty much know where this is going.

There is conflict within and everything else you could expect from a movie like this. It's decent overall if you like that kind of stuff. It's not Anti-War, it's more heroic than that. And the end suggests a couple of things, that you'll either like or hate. But your decision/mind will have been made up long before that

An hour of "training for the mission" consisting of lame buddy banter, then some action about as menacing as paint-balling, and a mercifully abrupt ending.

Photography and sound-track were acceptable. I could actually see and hear what was going on, unlike so many "straight-to-DVD" cheapies. And no pretentious gimmicks like flashbacks or twists, nothing "arty" at all. But the script and plot were like something a thirteen-year-old could come up with.

Normally in these "group of misfits thrown together" movies, whether war or disaster efforts, you get the same bunch of stereotypes, the Jew, the Black, the coward, the racist bully, the traitor, the alcoholic, the naive farm-boy, etc. This film was so half-hearted that none of the group even got depicted at that superficial level, remaining totally anonymous.

Honourable mention for Luke Goss, who gave a passable Clint Eastwood imitation. Should be considered if they ever make a Clint biopic.

Of all the people who worked on "War Pigs" in front of or behind the camera, only Dolph Lundgren survives more or less intact. His character was written with a few interesting quirks, and Lundgren does put in some effort in his performance. The rest of the cast and characters have nothing special about them to report (Mickey Rourke only has three brief scenes, for one thing.) The drab characters and performances are just part of the reason why this movie is surprisingly dull. The first half of the movie (mostly to do with training the title squad) has almost no action. And the training is nothing special, just routines you've seen in other special mission movies before, with not even any comic relief to stir things up (at least, comic relief that's funny.) Once the movie moves to the actual mission, things aren't that much better. The movie is still slow moving and boring, even when they throw in some token action (which always ends not long after it begins.) I've seen documentaries that had much more life than what's found in this movie.

This must rank as one of the worst researched and acted war movies of recent years. US soldiers disheveled and unkempt, dirty dozen-like, an absolutely absurd scenario and on top of it all, no research as to uniforms and army traditions. Foreign Legion officers never wear or wore the kepi blanc and the character of the tooth-pick chewing long-haired US "colonel" complete with his cowboy hat is absolutely ridiculous. The acting is terrible throughout and full of boring stereotypes. One wonders if this is meant to be a war movie or a B-movie parody. 1 out of then 10 is too good for this disaster of a movie!

Its not slightly shaky, its abusively shaky. Extreme close ups are gratuitous and leave the viewer without a sense of whats going on in the scene. The dialog was one dimensional. Bottom line, it tried way too hard to be cool and comes across as amateur and insulting to history and the viewer. I couldn't finish the film, so I can't speak for how it ends. But watching it was painful and nauseating. Its a real shame because I've been looking forward to its release for a while. I really wanted to like this movie. But at the end of the day, its produced so poorly that its rendered unwatchable. When producers realize that movies are about telling a story, in this case history, instead of trying to be cool, they'll stop getting overall failing grades at IMDb. Investors are throwing away their money.