Special Forces

This is certainly the most awful movie ever done. The action scenes are expensive and ridiculous, five guys fight an army in open field with a van.

A helicopter is destroyed and the same army who did it can't destroy the van.

The enemies jump in the air ridiculously when shot, a guy kills a lot of people with a punch in the stomach or opening a door strongly against them.

The acting on this film is terrible, the direction is horrible.

I'm out of adjectives, I've just seen it and came here to comment.

I dare anyone to see the whole movie.

[Note that there are 2 different direct-to-video movies named "Special Forces". One of them stars Daniel Bernhardt (Bloodsport sequels, Matrix Reloaded) and has a black & white cover. This one stars Marshall Teague and is a bit newer.]

I cannot believe it. Isaac Florentine's "Special Forces" may be the first low budget, direct-to-video action movie to succeed in satisfying the military/gun nuts, the martial arts fans, and general action fans all at once. It's even fairly well-made in terms of direction and production value.

First, there is plenty of gunplay and it manages to look vaguely authentic. The soldiers use proper shooting stances, keep their fingers out of the trigger guard, move & cover semi-relistically, and, unlike most low budget 'spec ops' movies, it looks as if the firearms were chosen because they were credible as US special ops weapons and not because they were the only ones available to the production. I wonder if this is due to Marshall Teague? On the special features of the Criterion Collection DVD of "The Rock", Teague is seen with a real Navy Seal demonstrating realistic weapons handling. Perhaps he brought this knowledge & training over to this film? On an even more pedantic note, several of the scenes where the soldiers were undercover in town reminded me of the fictional novels of Dick Marcinko, the Navy Seal legend turned best-selling author (Rogue Warrior, etc). Playing mind games and staredowns with the goons, evading tails, etc. A bit of a nice touch if you're familiar with Marcinko's work, though obviously it may be a completely unintentional similarity.

Second, the martial arts fights are very good! The final battle is blazing fast, energetic, and brutal. Whoever choreographed it certainly knows the specific rhythms and timing of a good Hong-Kong-style fight scene. The hand-to-hand fights are kept mainly to the latter half of the film. Before that, there are some quick takedowns and exchanges where you can see glimmers of this HK-style flair, but they are kept low-key so that they simply add a bit of energy to the proceedings without constrasting too much with the realistic gunplay.

Lastly, Florentine's direction is solid. He knows how to shoot and edit an action scene for both clarity and excitement. Thank goodness that he's not one of those MTV directors who feels the need to cut every half-second, chopping up every action scene into an incoherent blur. When so much work has gone into staging the action scenes, it's nice that he lets them play out clearly on screen. The non-action scenes are handled competently as well. There's an occasional bit of visual style here and there, but basically he just keeps things moving along and rarely if ever looks amateurish. You could call it a smooth professionalism. They also make great use of their Eastern European locales. It's scenic and absolutely believable for the story.

Overall, "Special Forces" is an enjoyable action flick featuring an unusual amount of detail & competence dedicated to the staging of its action scenes. If you're familiar with the direct-to-video military action genre, this is certainly one of the better ones.

This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and I spent my teen years watching Troma films and other crap horror. Actually the only reason I looked it up on IMDb after seeing it on a bus ride is because I seriously wondered if it was made by the US military, the patriotism was so over-the top. I mean, come on. These guys shoot one bad guy in the shoulder and he dies, but they are like superhuman tanks that keep running while getting gunned down, including shot in the head. What's even funnier is reading the reviews and seeing all of the Americans praising it as a great movie with realistic action scenes, and only the Lithuanians, Estonians, etc are the ones who notice how unbelievably biased it is. Like we Americans are so convinced of our natural superiority we don't even notice. My next suspicion, after US military propaganda film was that it was adapted from a video game, nothing else could explain the cartoonishness of the villains. But I was wrong there, too. To think that this is the best form some series, I can't even imagine what the worst looks like. I might look it up for a laugh.

(Preface: Don't confuse this "Special Forces" movie with the Daniel Bernhardt "Special Forces" movie!)

I like movies from the Nu Image filmstudio, and I also like movies directed by action king Isaac Florentine, so I knew I had to watch this. I was not disappointed. I will freely admit that this movie is not perfect. The CGI effects are obvious and clunky. There is little written to differentiate the protagonists from each other, and the bad guys are stock characters. The dialogue is often very familiar. And a large part of the first half of the movie is really slow and drawn out.

But there are more positive things about "Special Forces" than negative. It is slickly shot, with clear photography and good lighting. The Lithuania locations are well chosen, and dressed with enough props and extras to look realistic. But the best thing about the movie are the action sequences. A lot of money was obviously spent on ammo and explosive devices, and the various shootouts are really exciting. Even better are the martial art sequences - these sequences can stand proudly beside martial art sequences from Hong Kong films. And the last forty or so minutes of the movie are non-stop action - you'll be barely given time to breathe! Just be a little patient during the first half of the movie, and you'll be rewarded with enough mayhem to really pump your blood.

Director Isaac Florentine's follow-up to his cult hit, U.S. Seals 2 revisits

America's military with more Hong Kong style action and martial arts. Budgeted at a mere $1.3 million, Special Forces manages to push the limit on action

filmmaking within a grimly patriotic story set in the shadow of the bloody

Bosnian-Serbian conflict.

Although unrelated to U.S. Seals 2, Marshall R. Teague returns, this time to

headline the film as Major Don Harding, in addition to acting as military advisor. He's the real deal when it comes to portraying a no-nonsense military officer. His mostly non-emotive persona, echoed by hisfellow team members offers a

nice stabilizing force to ground the stylized action.

Wendy Teller (Daniella Deutscher) is an American photo-journalist in

theEastern European country of Moldavia who stumbles upon local military

forces executing villagers. The commander is a veteran of the Bosnian War

named Hasib (Eli Danker) who captures the woman and attempts to exchange

her for captured war criminals. Its a bad call as the only response he gets is Major Harding and a team of Army special forces flown in to rescue her. Once

down, they settle in to discover her whereabouts with the aid of a local

schoolteacher and a seasoned SAS operative named Talbot (Scott Adkins). A

bitter, past encounter with Hasib fuels Harding's desire for revenge as well as to save the journalist. But after an attempted rescue is thwarted, his team members are either killed or captured. Armed with lethal martial arts ability, Talbot steps in to assist Harding in completing the mission.

Director Isaac Florentine has toned down the stylized action for this film while retaining the excitement of previous efforts. His credits include directing 70 episodes of the popular children's action series for television, the Power

Rangers. This fact and his love for modern Japanese action filmmaking in

general has led to his past use of exaggerated sound effects and camera work

suitable for genre filmmaking, but often at odds when paired with real-world

scenarios. Initially, martial arts combat is used sparingly and with quicker results in neutralizing targets, more in keeping with real combat training. This limited display of hand-to-hand combat may come as a bit of a disappointment to some, but the film adequately compensates in two ways. First, there is relative

newcomer Scott Adkins, who plays the Special Air Service operative. He's

appeared in smaller roles in films such as Extreme Challenge (2001) and The

Highbinders (AKA The Medallion). This could be considered his first breakout

performance as a martial arts star and an impressive one at that. This leads to the second compensation for action buffs, the end fight. You know its coming. The lead villain's sidekick, who does little else throughout the film is present for the sole purpose of taking on Adkins. This scene is outstanding and features the highly competent choreography of Akihiro Noguchi, another Power Rangers

veteran. But this is no kid's stuff. Scott's kicking ability and range of motion are outstanding. The fight is fierce, extended, and only briefly interrupted by

Teague's less potent, but solid brawl with Eli Danker. There may be more

gunplay and explosions than anything else, but Adkins' two or three fight scenes are good enough to warrant martial arts fans taking more than a passing

interest. Any way you slice it, Florentine, himself a martial artist, is clearly committed to filming some of the best martial arts scenes outside of Hong Kong. Its all the more impressive given that he's doing it on a small budget and in an industry not always receptive to allowing quality martial arts in their films.

Special Forces also scores points for it's ambitions. The film begins with a

sobering mass execution of innocent civilians by machine gun. To know that

similar acts have actually occurred in numerous countries and in many conflicts, especially in recent years, sets this film apart from your standard independent action film. This was written after 9/11 and was originally meant to be set in Afghanistan, putting it in touch with the fight against terrorism. Due to a change of plans, location shooting moved to Lithuania and the film's backdrop became ethnic cleansing. The authentic setting and the assistance of the local military further raise the scale of the film.

Depicting the role of America's special forces to any degree of authenticity

presents many challenges and this cast and crew surmount some of them. But

in the end, Special Forces remains a stylized action movie first by giving way to heroic fights and even bigger fireballs. For perspective, the Navy Seals actioner Tears of the Sun starring Bruce Willis shares the same fate on a $70 million

budget. The small budget is a limiting factor, but quality fight choreography, decent acting, and a notable action performance by Scott Adkins makes this

effort Florentine's best yet.