Secret défense

Every film student should watch "The Chaos Factor" as a study in how to take a pretty good premise, write and direct it poorly, and come away with an uneven, not very satisfying film.

War crimes were committed in 1972 in Cambodia. The bad guys thought they covered their tracks, but a diary turns up in 1999. Then the fun and action begins. Too bad it wasn't written better.

Cambodia during the 1970's. Max Camden is responsible for a prison camp where human rights do not exist and experiments are ruthlessly carried out. When he is ordered to destroy the camp to avoid incriminating anyone in the US Government, he misses one soldier, who escapes but dies in the subsequent bombing of the area. Over 25 years later, Jack Poynt is leading a mission to clear the same area of landmines when he discovers the remains of the camp and discovers the journal of the escapee. However Camden is now one of the top men involved in the crisis with China and Poynt must face great odds to expose him.

I expected nothing from this film as I knew it was a video thriller at best and was on a channel best known for scooping up cheap action movies just to fill the time slot. As such this film is so-so, in other words it doesn't excel itself in any way and has all the low standards that we have come to expect from this type of film. The plot is ok at the start but spins out of control from then onwards. The significant of the modern day plot with Camden is not fully explored, the reason for Kim is iffy other than having a love interest and a babe in the film and the final twist is such an absurd coincidence to pull out that it's a wonder they bothered to make it personal!

The action scenes trundle along ok, but often feel like they are very cheaply done and looked to the A-Team for inspiration. The plot itself provides no great tension or drama so the action scenes at least distract from the business at hand and allow us to watch cars crash every now and again.

Sabato is a very poor leading man. He is every bit as wooden as he looks and I never once got involved with his character. The presence of Fred Ward either means his standards have fallen drastically or he just bought a new car and needed to clear the payments. He does ok but you can see in his eyes that he is just hamming because he has no material to work with. Susie Park is a nice addition, true her character adds very little other than oriental style action scenes, but she is quite pretty – just a shame the script demands her to inexplicably fall for Poynt in a matter of moments!

Overall this is not an awful film – it is an average video thriller. It doesn't do anything to make itself stand out and has a very weak plot. All the video clichés are there – love scene, conspiracy, bad guys who can't hit a brick wall with an automatic etc, but it just about manages to keep going. Passable if you're doing something else at the same time but probably vile if you're 100% focused on it and looking for it to entertain you.

The film starts out with an interesting premise but disappoints as it progresses. The situation from the Vietnam War that starts us off is compelling enough, but the story then goes off in several directions and can't decide which one it wants to develop. As other reviewers have noted, it recycles themes from several other movies and in the end almost becomes predictable from its reworking of these plots. I kept expecting to see Jon Voight (a la "Odessa File"; if you've seen it, you'll figure out why) pop out but had to settle for the mostly unknown cast. Despite this, the movie is fast paced and full of action and presents mild, if not very mindful, entertainment.

Too many memories of the Viet-Nam War have gone unresolved and thus the United States of America continues to pay with it's Vetrans having nightmares. This is one such painful memory, the movie is called " The Chaos Factor " and is perhaps reminiscent of the many black sins involved in the entire war. Capt. Jack Poynt (Antonio Sabato Jr.) is a military intelligent Officer who is assigned to duty in Viet-Nam. While there his primary task is to locate and destroy land minds and any other artifact which is believed to be U.S. property. What he discovers instead is a personal soldier's diary depicting a secret and covert operation in which Viet-Namese national were captured, tortured, murdered and subjected to chemical toxins. All this under the direction of one Col. Max Camden (Fred Ward) and the men of his special task force. Learning of the illegal top secret mission, Capt. Poynt seeks to bring these men to justice only to discover a whole level of the military would rather destroy him and the journal than to have it resurface in the press. R.Lee Ermey, Sean Kanan and Susie as a female assassin help to commit the cast. A good, dramatic and action pack film and one with few flaws. One easily recommended to an audience member who wants to learn of one mortal sin committed by our military. ****

This film appears to be a poor quality remake of 'The Odessa File', with fewer ideas. The main characters are unpleasant, you don't care about any of them, and what was the Chinese girl upto anyway. Not worth watching.