davidecasteel

Hey! It had 785 muzzle flashes--that was enough for me!

I rate movies of this genre on the number and quality of the muzzle flashes displayed. This one is almost 6 stars for number (732, 800 being 6 stars) and the quality is phenomenal! Some of the flashes are so large that one wonders how they were achieved (more than 5 feet long!). The crew certainly did not stint on the blank ammo budget.

Generally speaking, the AIP war films in the 1980s all scored very well in the muzzle flash department, but (as other raters have indicated) the movies pretty much sucked in plot, acting, tactics, etc. Because my focus is on other things, I just ignore all that and enjoy the action. It's mindless, but it's fun.

This AIP war movie is a genre for which I have a very simplistic method of rating: I count the number of muzzle flashes displayed in it, and note something about their beauty. I do not expect realism, good acting, proper tactics, or even much plot. I sit back, watch the action, and enjoy myself. I do a lot of laughing, but that's what I expect and I get a good time out of it.

As for details, this film had 884 muzzle flashes, which makes it a solid 6-star movie on my scale (8 stars is max, and no actual film has ever achieved that--it takes 3200 flashes to do that). There are about 20 films that have achieved the 6-star rating or higher, but what sets this one apart is that about half of the flashes (almost 400) happen in the very first 5 minutes of the movie (and the action is at night). The flames are quite spectacular.

The plot (such as it is) has several interesting twists that I found unexpected and, therefore, interesting.