Phantom Soldier

When you think about an ex-American soldier from the Vietnam war raging havoc in that country in the 1980s a la "Rambo", it is very unlikely that the first actor someone would picture in the role would be William Katt. Yet here he is in one of the biggest miscasting decisions I've seen in a movie for a long time. Seeing him act like Rambo does occasionally bring in some amusement, but that's about all the entertainment value "White Ghost" has. Although shot in Zimbabwe(!), the jungle locations are badly chosen, making the movie look like it was shot in the wilds of Florida. These locations and the actors are almost entirely shot with the cheap technique of having everything close to the camera. The action sequences are routine at best, and the story and characters we have seen in dozens of other movies before. If you come across a dusty copy in a thrift store, it's best to leave it alone and move to something else.

Oh yeah that's the good stuff 100% pure 80's action movie. It had everything the one man army, a huge body count, Explosions, buckets of blood, slow mo bad guy rag doll death and the Reb Brown yell what more could you want.

This is a true 80's actioner and sadly under appreciated perhaps because this was such a departure for Katt a man best know for the goofy and light hearted Greatest American Hero but he does a great job stepping into the action hero mould. I you love 80's action then you'll love this.

A very mediocre attempt to mimic Rambo and Missing in action. It fails on all counts. Poor acting, weak premise and a totally unacceptable interpretation of how an elite team of special forces soldier would act in the field. They are shown to be undisciplined and sloppy-very insulting. I love action movies and they don't have to be masterpieces, but this is a real yawner. Only saving grace, I downloaded it for free.

Although the worrying start will have you saying "What the?", this Vietnam yarn (nothing more) quickly redeems itself, and becomes an involving film, where ex vet Katt, below par, is still in Vietnam, where he's so often shacks up with girlfriend Chao. It's now 1987, and an elite team of mercenaries, are ordered by the Pentagon to find and eliminate Katt, where a few complications, arise. The Commander of this squad really has a hard on for Katt, who wouldn't mind seeing his arch enemy squeal before he dies. He's reasons mirror that in the same scenario of back story, done in Heated Vengeance. One of the Commander's squad (Hewitt) who's very much against it, sides with Katt, where our wrong cast lead must take on the elite force and Charlie who come out like ants. They have kidnapped Chao, and for Katt, his work is definitely cut out for him, where it becomes quite of a heavy mission itself. White Ghost has some gutsy moments, among explosions, close calls, and a little love making. The near mine trip scene is tense. It's start has Katt, just roaming through Vietnam, with the ever present Charlie about, his long curly hair, just gleamimg in the daylight, although he's just stepped off the make up truck, though I wouldn't really joke about that. He doesn't say much, but is just sheer wrong for the part, who like me, will have you thinking that, all the way through. That's just the vibe, you'll get. But Katt went pretty much out of action, after The Greatest American Hero, so he pretty much needed the work, discounting Baby and House. On the whole WG isn't a bad Nam' actioner at all, with good plotting, but too an admirable lead up/finale, when an old Vet buddy, goes into save him. The one major fallback here, sadly is Katt. By the way, White Ghost is a term for a Vet who disappeared off the radar, believed to be dead, or not, where in Katt's case, he's pretty much alive.

Actor/Producer Wayne Crawford plays a grouchy commando common enough to have a line that finishes with "Cap in your ass!" And with WHITE GHOST there's a lesson on how to use William Katt's BIG WEDNESDAY co-star, Reb Brown (who had resembled a skinny and large version of each other), the right and wrong way - starting with what not to do...

The mission to "rescue" and/or "recover" Katt's titular rogue from the Vietnam jungle, where he's existed, obscured behind a phantom legacy since the unpopular war's closure almost twenty years earlier, is headed by Reb Brown, portraying a very serious, seemingly passive major, addressing a round table of grimacing politicians wanting nothing to do with the near-historic error of Vietnam...

From the conference room to his office, Brown's Maj. Cross delivers lines in a listless CAPTAIN AMERICA delivery. But have patience: there is a reason to smile when, upon hearing the news that Wayne Crawford's group of bully commandoes had screwed up the mission, Brown asks for a plane - by the film's gun-blasting finale, he makes like an awesome STRIKE COMMANDO freed from a CAGE with the kind of screaming UNCOMMON VALOR only he would wield. And in-between the talky intro and the action-packed finale, there's a lot going on in WHITE GHOST, and, at the same time, not much at all.

Those mercenaries... led by Crawford, whose swarthy countenance makes a more believable villain than he was an affable hero in JAKE SPEED... basically trudge around what seems like a giant circle of tree-brush, seeming to get absolutely nowhere. The men include a young moral compass played by ENDLESS LOVE actor Martin Hewitt, who eventually winds up befriending the title character after realizing who the good and bad guys are...

Katt's title yet extremely buried and subtle Steve Shepard teaches the kid a thing or two about preparing guns and bombs for an upcoming attack while providing his own backstory, which includes the usual "we burned villages with innocent women and children," a tragic real life element that's extremely overused in Vietnam flicks...

Before this is an unintentionally hilarious moment showing the mercenaries first scene "in-country" - without having witnessed their arrival, there they are, trudging along, back in 'Nam as if in a nature center during summer vacation, and one guy says: "It smells the same," as another shouts back, "Maybe you're the one who smells!" This is paraphrased, but much of their dialogue's practically as awkward and banal...

As is the casting of the curly blond haired GREATEST AMERICAN HERO as the WHITE GHOST instead of a brawny, more befitting Chuck Norris type or hell, even Reb Brown would have fit much better in the brazen lead - which would have made it way more accessible to cult movie fans with a bloodlust for steely heroes wielding tons of ultra-violence - which does eventually occur, especially in the Extended-Version Blu Ray...

Although, being a genuinely capable actor, the CARRIE prom king tries his very best, and is no stranger to playing Vietnam vets - Katt leaves and returns from the war in BIG WEDNESDAY (and HOUSE) - but as this legendary "human wraith," a passive-till-pushed survivalist (with girlfriend Rosalind Chao) who one of the mercenaries describes as "Not human," he's out of his element, particularly with the curly, vanilla-colored hair (inches short of a mullet) that bounces to each step as if shampooed daily...

But once all the characters reach the high-octane pinnacle, WHITE GHOST, with little time left, goes wonderfully overboard, and Katt won't go down without a teeth-grinding fight, especially since Wayne Crawford's Captain Walker strives to take him back dead, not alive (still bitter about being "ratted-out" for burning that village)...

And, though dime-a-dozen in the "Missing in Action" style sub-genre, this obscure curio moves decently enough so what fails as a war-related vehicle winds up a semi-decent action flick.