Soldier Boyz

I saw this movie late night on HBO or something like that several years ago. The sheer stupidity of the concept just hit me several days ago.

A group of misfits from school get taken to vietnam for a covert operation? Huh?

I can just see the ads for the operation, study cooking hard or otherwise we will plant you on the Ho Chi Minh trail. The story is typical old Hollywood formula, a group of ragtag misfits who hate each other, come together, bond and save each other's lives. Ho hum.

What amazes me is that someone wrote this script, someone looked at this script, and said you know this could be a good movie to make. So, they went to the production company and studio and they said, you know this is such a great idea, let's give you several million dollars to make it. And wa la, we have a movie.

Michael Dudikoff is as wooden as ever and the rest of the cast is just creepy. To give this 3 stars is a crime.

To be generous, I would give it 0.5 stars out of 10.

This movie was quite OK, not bad or good. It's about a billionaires daughter (Nicole Hansen) that are kidnapped in Vietnam by a terrorist grup led by Vinh Moc (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). A former major (Michael Dudikoff) are asked to being sent down there to find her, he does it if he are allowed to bring six prisoners and that they will be free after the operation (if they survive). One thing that is bad is that they choice following prisoners. A nazi-guy (Channon Roe), a female murderer (Jacqueline Obradors), a black mass murderer called the Monster (Cedrik Terrell), an innocent murderer that can fight (David Barry Gray), and one black man and one latino that wants to kill each other (Tyrin Turner and Demetrius Navarro). The movie makers choosed this because making the movie characters so tough as possible. But no one in the world would choose murderers and revenging people and put them together for a rescue mission and then release them if they survived.

And why do they have to have a women in the team. I'm not against women in movies or in tougher character roles, but I don't think you need a women in every war-movie just because you wants to show that you are not against women in war.

But the movie works because it has action. But that this kind of movie tries to put in some message about women being discriminated and humiliated by man is awful. If a movie can't handle the basic story and get some descent actors then no one cares about the message.

But as an action-flick its OK.

Michael Dudikoff cares for delinquents… these are violent delinquents, who he would like to give a second chance to and if they choose to accept; freedom is there if they come back alive. Killers, rapists and psychotics of different backgrounds. And hey some are innocent. Hell he even negotiates a deal for 10 million dollars to a youth group. You know conning out the money of a rich tycoon who tries to hire him to rescue his daughter who has been kidnapped while doing aid work in Vietnam. So Dudikoff (who's in prison, but we never know why --- maybe it had something to do with the death of his wife and child in a drive-by shooting?) goes about picking a ragtag group of delinquent prisoners to go gangster and popping caps (you'll know what I mean when you see certain gunfire sequences) in the jungles of Vietnam. Watch as they bicker at each other, train their butts out and have a little hand-to-hand combat with the almighty Dudikoff. This is to prepare them to take on character actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tarawa (doing his usual viper shtick), his army and that helicopter. The whole thing is ridiculously obtuse and macho, but this routine b-grade in-and-out rescue mission entertains in sort of a teen version of "The Dirty Dozen". Be it from its trite script to paper-thin story and stereotypical characters looking to redeem themselves in some clichéd shape. However at least it moves at a quick pace, it's competently staged in its stunt work and there's a gratuitous amount of bloody action and hysteric slow motion. Sometimes comical and sloppy, but it's indeed gratuitous. And plus you got to have explosions. As it packs enough at the end. Too bad the climatic showdown comes to really nothing.

"I am the people."

The American Ninja, Michael Dudikoff, is back, although not as a ninja in this weak made-for-TV action film. Instead, he plays an ex-Marine hired by a wealthy businessman to rescue his kidnapped daughter from Vietnamese bandits. Vietnam films were pretty played out by the time this films was made, so I'm not quite sure why this was a story that needed to be told, especially since essentially same story was told much better in the 1983 John Milius produced "Uncommon Valor" (which incidentally Dudikoff had a brief non-speaking role). Dudikoff assembles his own Dirty Dozen out of a bunch of criminals and reprobates to carry out their predictable and dull mission. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, an actor too good for this tripe, does as much as he can with his ridiculous villain role as the bandit leader. Overall, this is a pretty low rent Vietnam themed action film that's about 10 years too late.

I doubt the concept of this movie would work in real life. A group of delinquents are recruited by Michael Dudikoff for a dangerous mission in Vietnam, forming a dirty half dozen (as the film was advertised). Despite the unbelievable go-point, the movie's pretty good, and does a good job creating the feeling of a hostile and deadly war area with dire consequences for the people who go there. One interesting element of this movie was watching Dudikoff acting with a cast of younger actors, and knowing his real-life passion for spending time with children, it makes one feel that he really believes in these kids despite the screw-ups they had made in their lives. The action is violent and bloody, but is needed and works in effectively creating a believable war zone. I like the fact the teens aren't all pretty-faced kids off the streets of Beverly Hills, as would probably be the case if it was made today. Fans of movies like THE DIRTY DOZEN and UNCOMMON VALOR should give this one a look.