Strike Commando

When you rent a cheap Italian action movie from the mid-eighties, you more or less (should) know what to expect. So, aside from the cut-rate cinematography, it's hard to complain about anything else in "Strike Commando", because it delivers what it promises: non-stop action and mayhem, and a high body count. If you're in the mood for mindless commando-type violence, this movie is better than many similar American flicks. (**)

YES!!!!! THE ultimate Commando film!!!! Forget Stallone and Arnie, Reb Brown is the King, "there's no one who can touch him, not in your whole damn army!" This has all the necessary ingredients for a top notch piece of one man and a lot of weapons against an entire country of soldiers and mercenaries action!! Betrayed and left for dead by his superiors, our Reb sets out to escape from the POW camp and is taken in by some friendly locals who proceed to be brutally murdered by Russian monster Chacuuda!! After and excellent finding the bodies of massacred friends and screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO to the sky scene, our hero sets off on the trail of Chacuuda and manages to kill an entire army before defeating the evil villain in hand to hand combat! This rules!!!! Watch it!!!

My review was written in November 1987 after watching the movie on International Video Entertainment video cassette.

"Strike Commando" is a run-of-the-mill Italian war picture imitating "Rambo". Made last year, pic was recently given a token release in Kansas City, ahead of its current home video availability.

Reb Brown fits the bill as brawny Michael Ransom, sole survivor of a deadly mission in Vietnam by the crack Strike Commando force. Befriended by local villages, he spots Russianofficers in action and is sent back in by his commander (Christopher Connelly) to get photographic evidence of he Russkies.

With dumb dialog (beefy Russian played by Alex Vitale insists on calling the hero "Americanski"), pic slavishly imitates the second "Rambo" film leading to a touch of "Rocky IV" (bare-knuckled fight between the two musclemen) as well. At least a reel or two overlong, film has an idiotic, padded coda set about 15 years later in Manila.

Some okay minor action scenes do not disguise the fact that the film lacks the large-scale set pieces that have become de rigueur for Vietnam war pics. Worst scene has Brown unsuccessfully (in an obvious stretch) simulating tears and pathos as he holds a dying little Vietnamese boy in his arms -cut to him with machine gun in hand bellowing a war cry, fully motivated.

This is an exploitative rip-off of the big budgeted and succesful mega-action thriller Rambo . Here Reb Brown stars as Michael Ransom a hunk soldier who takes on enemies to rescue prisoners or other trapped platoons . At a risked mission he meets a besieged group of local natives led by a French : Allan Collins . When things go wrong , Ransom seeks vengeance against a nasty Russian officer : Alex Vitale who is supporting the Nam guerrilla .

Cheap and exploitative movie taking parts here and there of classics as the expensive "Rambo" by George Pan Cosmatos with Sylvester Stallone and "Missing in action" by Joseph Zito with Chuck Norris . This Strike Commando 1986 packs thrills , chills , grisly tortures , shootouts , jungle outdoors filmed in Philippines Islands , lots of explosion and catching musical score composed by means of synthesizer by Luigi Ceccarelli . In the movie shows up some secondaries, ordinary in B-Italian fims , and most of them playing in Bruno Mattei films, such as : the prolific Luciano Pigozzi or Allan Collins nicknamed the Italian Peter Lorre , Christopher Connelli , Mike Monty , Massimo Vanni , uncredited William Berger , and Clyde Anderson or Claudio Fragasso himself who often appeared as cameos and brief interventions. Special mention for the extremely baddie Russian played by Alex Vitale giving a very sadistic acting following the wake of oriental villain hoodlums as Harold Sakata of Goldfinger and Professor Tanaka of Missing in Action. Followed by a sequel in similar style titled "Trappola Diabolica or Strike Commando II" 1988 with Brent Huff as Michael Ransom , Mary Stavin and a miscast Richard Harris himself .

The motion picture in medium budget was regular but professionally directed by Bruno Mattei , assisted by his usual collaborator Claudio Fragasso who also wrote the script along with his wife Rossella Drudi . Deceased Bruno Mattei often used Vincent Dawn pseudonym , he made a large number of films in all kinds of genres as Vietnam wartime, terror , erotic , nunexploitation , Sword and Sandals , Spaghetti Western, Documentary , Mondo Cinema, Women in Prison or WIP , and some of them shot in Philippines as "Robowar" , "Strike Commando I" , "Strike Commando II" , "Double Target" and "Born to Fight" . Rating : 5/10, passable and acceptable , though very cheesy . The film will appeal to Italian Vietnam sub-genre aficionados.

Directed by Vincent Dawn (ie Bruno Mattei) this is quite the shoddiest and worst acted war film in living memory. The plot "Ha!" is a direct steal from Rambo First Blood Part II with loser actor Reb Brown as a poor man's Stallone seeking revenge on a Colonel who deserted him and his buddies in Vietnam.

Brown continually shouts "Rah!" and "Die!" about a million times and good job too as when he is required to act, his lines are delivered in an atrociously wooden manner. I do feel (and hope) that director Vincent Dawn (Zombie Creeping Flesh) was taking the pi** slightly - if not then he is surely the worst film-maker in the entire world.

There are many hilarious moments such as when Brown awakes from a nightmare screaming and for no reason everybody else in the room stars screaming - including a small monkey. He then stumbles and falls backwards out of a raised hut!

I reckon this movie could have been made by a twelve year old. How on earth do such useless directors as Dawn get producers to waste their money on this crap? Can you imagine the premiere of this movie (well there probably wasn't one!) and to see the looks on the investors faces when they were shown what their money had been spent on.

No wonder Bruno Mattei has all these pseudonyms; Vincent Dawn, Norman Dawn(II), Bob Hunter(IV) etc - it's so he can pretend that he didn't actually make this hopeless mess of a movie. I also can't believe Dawn made a sequel to this - jesus, has the man no shame?