Soldier's Revenge

My review was written in November 1986 after watching the film on Trans World Entertainment video cassette.

Just when you thought you were safe from another disgruntled Vietnam war vet picture, along comes "Soldier's Revenge" (a/k/a "Vengeance of a Soldier"), an unreleased 1984 production just hitting the home video stores.

John Savage toplines, doing a James Dean turn (that comes off more like Michael Parks) as a war vet who returns home to Freemont, Texas (pic was lensed in L. A. and Argentina) after the death of his mother. Local folk hate him and call him a traitor because he spilled the beans to a magazine about a secret mission he was on that massacred innocent villagers.

Between hokey fights in a pool hall with local toughs led by Tiny (Sebasian Larrie), Savage gets a job piloting a cargo plane containing munitions headed for the wartorn Latin American nation of San Floridan. Beauteous Maria Socas hires him, but upon arrival both are arrested. After daring escapes and chases, Savage has a final confrontation with Ricardo (Edgardo Moreira), a rebel leader, and believe it or not, Savage talks Ricardo into a mutual laying down of weapons "to set an example for the world"; Savage, Socas and a little girl escape in a boat into the sunrise.

With overwritten narration (delivered by Savage) hammering home the peacenik message,, picture is a bit silly. Director David Worth does all right by the action scenes; post-synced dialog material is poor.

For this poorly produced and distributed work, the video box text states that the film's protagonist returned to Denton, Texas, following his Special Operations tour of duty in Viet Nam, a Denton of "honkey tonks, dirt roads and rednecks", but as the actual Denton is rather much nicer than that, a bedroom community north of Dallas, the location is sagely changed to a non-existent one: "Freemont", (shot in the Los Angeles area) for which it is safe to describe in harsher terms. U.S. Army helicopter pilot Frank Morgan (John Savage) goes to Freemont a day too late to attend the funeral of his mother, and this tardiness, atop an article he pens for a magazine that serves to expose a slaughter of Vietnamese civilians, in which he played an unknowing role, leaves him open to ill treatment by his former town acquaintances who strongly urge him to leave and not come back. After singlehandedly thrashing a pool hall contingent of antagonists, Frank is pursued by the thrashees, in addition to the hostile local sheriff, to a nearby airport where an attractive Hispanic woman, Beatriz (Maria Socas) is stranded, having a plane but no pilot, the craft laden with weapons that Beatriz intends to utilize as exchange for her kidnapped father's release, the ordnance to be employed by the revolutionaries who hold her sire hostage; naturally, along comes fleeing flier Frank who agrees to transport her and the munitions to her native land, "San Florian". The storyline is disjointed and very little of the action will make any sense to a viewer despite a heavy-handed message difficult to avoid, i.e., war is an unnecessary hell, an ironic stance when taken with the work's constant emphasis upon (poorly performed) violence, particularly gun battles and explosions. If there was any original merit of any sort to this mess, it it was erased during post-production work, resulting in a sloppily edited and filmed affair, often too visually dark to be seen at all, with subpar dubbing, looping and synching of the sound track, all merely adding to the confusion occasioned by an unsoundly composed screenplay.

I love John Savage, and he has made better stuff than this. He comes home to a not so friendly welcome, as an ex soldier, turning traitor for a secret Vet mission, which I appreciated for his own reasons. He last anti war words in the film, which I also appreciated, are probably the best thing, about this okay actioner yarn, which is nothing to write home about. For Savage fans, it's not without interest, but the movie just sums up to forgettable action fare. Savage's character too, can fight when cornered, by an angry group of bar folk. He becomes a patsy as agreeing to fly a woman involved with radical activity, so of course, we root for John. The movie's bold poster cover, misrepresents the atmosphere of story, so one can feel downtrodden, as many will here. Okay.

A film of two halves. The first half is decent, while the second half is laborious. What starts off like a cheap, but mildly amusing Rambo knock-off eventuates into a stodgy gung-ho revolutionary action piece. A laid back John Savage was agreeable in the lead. Very resourceful and looked cool in his black shades. Outside of Savage, no one else made much of an impression.

Frank Morgan is a dishonourably discharged Vietnam War veteran who heads back to his home town to be welcomed by local hostility. While there he meets a woman who asks for his help to fly a plane of cargo to a small island, but he turns it down. However he takes up the offer when he gets himself into some trouble with the towns folk.

For most part it's rather clumsy, murky and hackneyed low-rent action exploitation. What starts rather careful and melancholy in exploring its protagonist with some thoughtful additions, trumps its down-played nature and personal war set-up to go out in full assault with ragged and uninterestingly generic results. It just too limited and it shows where everything soon becomes bland and repetitive filler with a wishy washy romance sub-plot. It's a film which seems to get caught up in two minds; does it want to be fun and senseless or heavy-handed and serious with its approach to the meaningless of war. The two never to really gel here and it simply tanks it.

John Savage portrays Frank Morgan, a man who comes home from Vietnam to his hometown of Freemont, Texas but doesn't receive a hero's welcome. He wanted to be a soldier just like his father, and he was chosen to be a part of an elite special forces team and go on "secret missions" . When Morgan tells a magazine about some slaughtered innocents during those missions, he is forever branded a traitor. In the dusty ol' town of Freemont, he is shunned and jeered at by almost everyone. He becomes an outcast. The leader of the Frank Morgan Is a Traitor Society is one Tiny (Sebastian Larrie), an angry redneck with a posse of fellow disgruntled hayseeds. All Frank wants to do is move back in to his childhood home and go to the local juke joint for a burger and a beer. But OH no, that can't happen. At least one barfight must ensue. After an incident provoked by Tiny unleashes some chaos, Frank is now on the run from both the rednecks and the cops with only his wits. But there's more...

Just as this First Blood (1982) pastiche is kicking into gear, it transpires that Frank falls in love with Beatriz (Socas), a woman from the war-torn third-world country San Florian. Since he is a pilot, he agrees to fly the woman from Texas to San Florian with a lot of weaponry. She intends to free her father who has been kidnapped by the revolutionaries. Can Frank use his skills to avoid the pitfalls of the trigger-happy revolutionaries and ride off into the sunset with Beatriz? The first part of the movie - the First Blood part - is actually really good. It has some narration from Savage and seems like a sensitive tale with good character development. Then it goes from subtle to standard fare. The second half is boring and bland. It truly is a movie with two faces: the first half interesting and worthy and the second which is a slog that runs out of steam. But perhaps the most egregious problem is that the movie is called "Soldier's Revenge" but this soldier gets very, very limited "revenge". It really makes you wish the first half of the film played out more naturally. Maybe they figured if they did that, it would be too close to First Blood, but so what? It's not exactly the same. They tried to be different, but simply fusing two types of plots that have been done before together doesn't make a movie original, unfortunately.

On the good side, besides the first half, Savage puts in a nice performance and he is one cool customer in those trademark shades. The movie also sports some quality cinematography and looks great. Sadly, the movie is hampered by some clunky ADR and some voices seem off or don't match, whatever. Director David Worth is well-versed in junky cinema and it seems during the movie his career is getting junkier and junkier.

Released on TransWorld entertainment on VHS in the U.S. in the classic big-box, Soldier's Revenge goes off the rails (in a bad way) after an impressive first half.

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