Kill Squad

This is cheesy fun with a not so bad story with a twist as well. A wealthy businessman, once a vet is viciously attacked while his wife is raped and murdered by these thugs. Now wheelchair bound, he enlists the help of six of his old buddies, vets too, who all have their own fighting style. We see examples of their work in their early scenes, one involving a disgruntled employee who shoots his own toe off. One of the squad, an Asian, shows his employee what happens when he refuses to pay him. Another one of the squad is thrown off the scaffolding of a building, hitting a mound of sand below, and amazingly doesn't die. When the guilty co workers run down to check that's he's kaput, he's vanished. But the kill squad become the death squad, where one by one they're taken out, til only one's left standing, who finds out the real truth, heartbreaking and horrifying as it is as it's motives are revealed. This movie I saw back in 86' was a fun watch, though again it lacks in the brain department, but what brains it lacks here certainly makes up with the action which karate action fans will as well as it's golden twist.

Wheelchair bound veteran (Risk) maimed in Vietnam assembles his former team to hunt down those responsible for the brutal death of his wife. Things unravel when a mysterious black-clad martial artist / swordsman starts taking down the elite team.

Largely unknown cast features Jean Glaude as the principal member of the squad who brings the others aboard, whilst veteran Cameron Mitchell plays the cigar-chewing hit man Dutch with the bad heart who cooks a mean BBQ. Some viewers might also recognise professional bodybuilder Bill Cambra as the particularly burly member of the team (although his voice appears to be dubbed as are several of the others for some reason).

The mystery isn't that difficult to solve, but it's still cheesy fun getting to the long awaited confrontation. Plenty of light humour, car stunts, banal dialogue ('fragrance can open a man's mind to lots of things') and slower-than-usual fight choreography commensurate with the micro budget (reportedly $80k). Given the amount of distribution achieved on videocassette back in the 80s, I can only assume they made their money back and then some on what is a very average action/ revenge thriller.

Bloody and over the top with a funky sax sound, 'Kill Squad' is a clumsily photographed expensive home movie but deserving of minor cult status for being so egregiously bad it's impossible not to watch.

Don't ya just love it when people insist on their names being part of their film's title, even if their names aren't going to mean much outside of their immediate friends and family. Thus, in the tradition of Bart La Rue's Satanwar, Krishna Shah's Rivals, and Peter Kay's Sexy Secrets of the Kiss-o-gram Girls, we here have "Patrick G. Donahue's Kill Squad".

While he isn't exactly the household name that his title billing might imply, Donahue has had a steady career directing low-budget action movies, mostly starring himself and his son. The most well known of the bunch being 1991's Savage Instinct, released by Troma as 'They Call Me Macho Woman'. A film in which the heroine escapes from the bad guys by walking along the tops of their heads, then proceeds to taunt them by grabbing her own crotch....and if that doesn't entice you into seeing 'They Call Me Macho Woman' nothing will.

Beginning as he clearly meant to go on, Donahue's first film Kill Squad is a simplistic, eager to please action-fest that I'm surprised isn't the sweetheart of more 1980s action movie fans.

The bare bones plot of Kill Squad concerns Joseph Lawrence (Jeff Risk) a former Vietnam veteran turned successful electronics businessman. Lawrence's life is turned on its head when a bunch of goons led by his business rival Dutch (Cameron Mitchell) breaks into his house, gang rapes and murders his wife, then shoots Lawrence, leaving him paralysed. Now wheelchair bound, a grief stricken Joseph Lawrence has revenge on his mind, and calls on his Nam vet buddies to form 'The Kill Squad'. A bunch of vigilantes who have to fight literally hundreds of bad guys in order to get to Mitchell's final villain. Each member of this tough guy supergroup gets their own thumbnail sized intro, which quickly establishes what they've been up to since Nam, and the fact that they don't take sh** from anyone. Tommy (Gary Fung) has been working as a gardener for a racist scumbag who refuses to pay him and calls him a 'nip' at a pool party. Tommy responds by beating the bejesus out of him and several of his men, easily ensuring a cheque for garden services rendered. K.C. (Jerry Johnson) has grown up to become a badass pimp whose martial arts moves and streetwise quips come in handy when a rival pimp tries to muscle in on his territory. Donahue was a man who clearly wasn't about to let the Kung-Fu and Blaxploitation genres die off without a fight. All of these sequences end with the other guys showing up, hi-fiving their bro, and recruiting them into The Kill Squad with the film's catchphrase "Joseph needs you".

Kill Squad plays like a live-action version of an arcade game we all should have been dropping coins into back then. Characters are only distinguishable by their weaponry and ethnicity. It feels as if there should be an option to play as either Tommy, the Oriental guy (special weapon: fighting sticks), Larry, the Afro-ed black guy (special weapon: ninja stars), Alan, the muscular white guy (special weapon: a pair of nunchaku), Pete, the Mexican guy (special weapon: two pairs of nunchaku), K.C, the black pimp (special weapons: switchblade + jive talk) or Arthur, the Jewish guy aka the one with the Bruce Lee T-Shirt (special weapon: the sword). True to the arcade game format, these characters battle their way through various backdrops (the junkyard, the used car lot, the construction site) before moving on to the next level.

The average scene in the film involves the Kill Squad shaking down some poor S.O.B for information as to Cameron Mitchell's whereabouts, only for the guy's work buddies to come to his aid, necessitating that the Kill Squad kick all their asses. The poor S.O.B eventually reveals he knows another poor S.O.B who 'might' have a clue to Cameron Mitchell's whereabouts. At which point BOOM!!! a mysterious sniper takes out the snitch and one of the Kill Squad. After mourning their fallen comrade for all of about 5 seconds, the Kill Squad rush off to shake down the next poor S.O.B for information as to Cameron Mitchell's whereabouts, only for the guy's work buddies to come to his aid...and exactly the same thing happens as in the previous scene. No matter what their occupation or walks of life- hardhats, car salesmen, lawyers, scrap metal workers, party guests- everyone in this film appears to be an accomplished martial artist who wants to take on the Kill Squad. In fact if this film is to be believed, the only person on the face of the planet who doesn't know martial arts is Cameron Mitchell.

Straight to video in the UK, Kill Squad was released on tape by Mike Lee's blood and guts fuelled Vipco label. While Lee did sporadically dabble in financing movies himself, having put up the money for Andy Milligan's Carnage (1983), Spookies (1986) and the car crash compilation video 'Britain's Women Drivers' in 1995, Vipco's involvement in Kill Squad appears to be purely as an after-the-fact video distributor. The 'Michael D. Lee' credited as the producer of the film being unlikely to be the Vipco Mike Lee, whose middle name is Anthony. Still, Kill Squad is a film that is perfectly at home amidst the Vipco brand of entertainment. Gore, Kung-Fu, car chases and racial insults fly around the screen. Filler and boredom are dirty words within the cinema of Patrick G. Donahue. It is difficult not to be won over by a filmmaker so singularly hell-bent on giving you an action packed good time...maybe this guy earned the right to have his name above the title after all.

Whoever did put up the money for Kill Squad, bought themselves a few scenes worth of Cameron Mitchell chewing the scenery, a cast of real life martial arts experts putting in passable acting performances, countless onscreen brawls, a paper thin script, some spectacular vehicular destruction, and the occasion pair of bare breasts. In other words...money well spent.

If one was to try and make a list of all the implausibilities and flaws in this movie, he would need much more than a thousand words. From its crummy-looking cinematography (the sky looks mostly yellow) to its supremely silly plot (that is just an excuse to get from one kung-fu scene to another in as little time as possible), this flick is bad. But...it's enjoyably bad. It is intended for bad-movie lovers ONLY, and only if you belong in that category should you take my ** rating seriously.

You should know what to expect. And with Kill Squad you get what you expect. Silliness. Man-love. Rose beds. Friendly interrogating. Work place conflict. That's non-stop silliness, man-love, rose-beds, friendly interrogating and work place conflict. The only thing that was missing was Carl Douglas' song 'Kung-fu fighting'. Yeah, everyone (yep that's everyone who's standing around on screen) fights like they know kung-fu or at least gives it some sort of shot. No one is safe from these party poopers. And nobody is safe from the sound FX too (swoosh, crunch and smack). All of this mayhem over a electronics company.

Cheap, low-grade drive-in exploitation that's simply fun from start to finish. Its heedless approach is episodic, but it's all about the kung-fu set-pieces. Less talk, more fighting. Although there's bit of strutting as well. Well they can't help it because of its funky dory soundtrack. Sure it can be repetitive, but never does it become tiring due to its speedy pace and unsparing carnage.

A small group of Vietnam veterans with special abilities reunite to seek vengeance for a friend who was left paralysed. The motto; "Joseph needs you." So after the brutal opening, we then see the squad but before teaming up ("Assemble the squad Larry. You know where to find them."). They all get some sort of intro to show how badass and invincible they are (Although bullets are the exception). Then it comes "Joseph needs you." No hesitation, they're in and they deck up in their former army gear to help their pal. It's super best friends doing (a head nodding) Joseph proud, out to dig up leads (Cameron Mitchell their number one suspect), but finding nothing but trouble as they take matters into their own hands. Especially those you don't like to play fair, by bringing out a gun but those moments do end up with comical and quite bloody results ("You better let me hold onto this before you kill yourself").

Plenty of humour, but never does it feel all that serious. There's a good mixture of laughs, sleaze and take no prisoners violence. That's not to say it doesn't get ridiculous, because it does like the balaclava wearing sniper who suddenly appears from nowhere eliminating any clues / ties / the kill squad. While the climatic revelation is melodramatic ham that doesn't make much sense. You just roll with it.

Enjoyably dumb, macho kung-fu entertainment.