Hell of the Living Dead DVD re-release in Japan

Better late than never, Japan now have a new DVD release of Bruno Mattei's Hell of the Living Dead AKA Virus that is up to par with the Blue Underground all-region DVD, in fact, it appears to be the same disc! The original Japanese DVD is now long out-of-print and looks like it may have been a cut down, 4:3 VHS-ripped presentation, so this justice is long overdue. While seemingly having no features already not on the Blue Underground DVD, the cover is now colourful and lavish, and it is nice to see Mattei still being relevant. Two of his more recent films, The Jail and Island of the Living Dead, were both previously released on DVD this year also in Japan, Rats is most likely to be next for a re-release, now if only we could get his other films remastered and re-released.

-James 

Cop Game

With the action craze in the 80s, it's as if Bruno Mattei and his contemporaries all holidayed in the Philippines to see what they could all film in the same jungle while borrowing footage off each other. It must have been one big happy film-making, idea-chucking festival at the cost of the Philippines' jungles. Sticking to the tradition of ripping off what was hot at the time, Mattei (under his "Bob Hunter" alias here) went for something he could do while in his Filipino hot spot, and that was make a cop film set in the final days of the Vietnam war. The film going through the Italian filter was Off Limits, starring William DaFoe, a film I have admittedly not seen.

Manning the star roles are Brent Huff (Strike Commando 2) and Max Laurel (Quang from Robowar), with appearances by Romano Puppo (Cory from Robowar too) who appears to have an Italian accent here, as Captain Kirk (oh you read that right, writer Rossella Drudi must have been having a funny day), Werner Pochath, who had something of an acting career, as Col. Kasler, Candice Daly as Annie, and as always, Massimo Vani making a cameo as background filler. Most surprising of all though, is Brett Halsey as General Morris. Huff plays Morgan, a typically tough-as-nails American cop with a dangly earring while Laurel plays Hawk, a Vietnamese cop with the thin underlining of being a family man, they're an unlikely pairing but they've got each other's backs.

They've been called in by Captain Kirk, reluctantly known as "Skipper" by Morgan, to investigate a recent murder carried out on an American officer called Col. Watts by the Cobra Force, an American army unit. All signs point to the murder being orchestrated by one Major Shooman, the leader of the Cobra Force. The area where the shooting took place is in the control of Col. Kasler; Kasler tells Morgan and Hawk that Shooman definitely wants him and another officer dead, but isn't really saying why for reasons of national security (to quote Kasler directly, "it's not a pretty picture"). Kasler resides with his boy-ish bodyguard called Lodge, who does a great job at body-guarding when a drug-abusing Vietnamese street urchin knocks him out and then tries to assassinate Kasler (a bullet wound to the shoulder, something Kasler considers to be just a scratch, while his acting certainly makes it to be that way). After a good five minutes or so of the cop duo chasing the amateur assassin (and Huff spewing out unintelligible swearing while out of breath), the Cobra Force appear again to kill the assassin.

After that unsuccessful tirade, Morgan makes a call to Skipper about the current situation (Hawk has seemingly disappeared for now, "one of his kids is sick", either Drudi and Mattei REALLY wanted to emphasise the fact this guy is a family man, or Max Laurel wasn't on the set). While on the phone, a blond woman called Annie writes something I really can't read on the mirror opposite of Morgan in lipstick (if I could read the Japanese subtitles, it'd help), but he follows her and she tells him the room number of one of the Cobra Force murderers; Morgan ends up killing him before he can interrogate him (the killer gets hold of a giant machinegun but completely fails to just walk up to Morgan and spray him and instead destroys the fucking bar in his room!). Morgan and Hawk then corner Kasler to get some info out of him, who tells them that he, Col. Watts and the other one in danger witnessed Major Shooman order his men to slaughter a village of innocent Vietnamese citizens, but the American military want to keep it quiet to save face. The other officer in danger is a guy called Pierce, who is spending his night in a strip club, but uh-oh! Morgan and Hawk get there too late, the other two Cobra Force killers have done away with their next victim, so Morgan and Hawk kill the Cobra Force guys out of self-defence (Hawk punches one to death because he nearly knocked out his tooth, in Hawk's defence "I thought I was hitting him lightly!"), all this after an extremely hokey car chase!
Skipper gets pissed at how the two have kinda fucked up their mission (who in the middle of all this serious business and shouting, still reaffirms that he hates being called Skipper), General Morris orders Morgan and Hawk to go to the front to meet up with Shooman and get some answers. Shooman being Shooman, more or less kidnaps them after a brief encounter with some Vietcong troops (movie stock footage of Vietcong troops), and lives up to his reputation; he snorts coke while telling his helicopters to start bombing Vietnamese villages, all the while barking "FUCKING BEAUTIFUL", this scene enables Mattei the one-two punch of ripping off the same scene from Off-Limits, as well as the re-use of footage from his own films! Shooman tells them that Col. Watts and Col. Pierce were working for him while the Cobra Force guys doing the murders must have been traitors, Morgan takes a bullet to the arm whilst gunning and Shooman tells him to get patched up while he and Hawk will go to Saigon to meet up with General Morris. However, Shooman and Hawk are killed the next day by guys who have presumably been impersonating the Cobra Force, who have also killed General Morris. It's now up to Hawk to get to the bottom of things.

The plot is confusing, and it essentially boils down to "THE COMMIES DID IT!", which is as satisfying as any conclusion can get for trash cinema like this, in which brains come last. As per usual with Mattei, stock footage is a norm, but the abundance of the material is unprecedented here. This time, not only do we get footage snatched from the public domain of the Vietnam War, we even get a helping of clips from Strike Commando 1 & 2 and Double Target! There's probably some others in there, as this is one Mattei flick that feels really under-budgeted, as if they had a total of four locations (a hotel, a marketplace outside the hotel, a nearby jungle and a fake chopper interior). Mike Monty even makes an appearance through the magic of re-using film (note how the type of helicopter constantly changes in the Shooman scenes).

That's not all though, the car chase scene has been completely pulled from another exploitation flick, Ark of the Sun God! Which used miniatures quite impressively! Too bad the most inventive piece of film work in this is the first murder scene with the gas masks being put on the camera lenses to make it look like it's from the point of view of the killers. These inclusions easily make this feel like one of Mattei’s most incomplete and lowest budgeted works. The production values are simply inept; locations feel more limited than usual with Philippines-based actionsploitation schlock, camera shots are primarily static and many lines are very hard to make out clearly, as if they didn't use boom mics for many shoots. The biggest aesthetic offender would be how the film is so murky, with one too many scenes taking place in the dark with obscured action. That's not to say this isn't worth a view at least once, the Drudi-penned script feels just like any Fragasso screenplay with the outrageous dialogue (well, she is his wife!), there's simply too many golden lines to count ("If I want any shit from you, I'll squeeze your head!", "Gook COPS?! SHIT! This war sucks more and more!"). Brent Huff cruises on through with his baritone suaveness, though there's plenty of times in which he just shouts everything, making him awful pretty easily. Also, count the times Pochath changes facial expression. This review can't be completed without mention being made of the music; Cop Game has its own theme song! It's a deliriously 80s-centric Rock piece and it sounds awesome, even though no one is exactly credited for it other than Al Festa. The incidental music is repetitive but not bad in itself, even though the obnoxious synthesizer really numbs your brain, one piece would even later end up in Robowar it seems (or vice versa), acquiring it wasn't from a previous film already. There's two other obscure 80s songs that appear in the strip club scenes that drag themselves out a bit (this being exploitation and all, and perhaps Mattei was having a nostalgic moment for his mondo movie days). Cop Game may be one of Bruno Mattei’s worst movies, which in itself makes it a very recommended watch for lovers of trash, but its dismal action set pieces mean it stands only on how bad it is; the mildly competent Double Target and even Strike Commando at least had something holstering them up. That's not to say I could ever hate this, it's good riffing material all round.

• Action: 2.5/5
• Music: 4/5
• Stock footage: 7/5  

-James, 27 March 2010 (original date)

Review source: Japanese VHS

Screenshot source: Japanese VHS

Title information

• Production company: Flora Films
• Year of release: 1988

Alternative titles:

• G.I. Killer (West Germany)
• サイゴン野獣刑事, "Saigon yajou keiji" <Saigon Beast Investigator> (This title is a tricky one, but it seems to be saying that the investigator(s) featured in the film are hardasses) (Japan)

Double Target

Strike Commando would not be the first (and certainly not the last) time Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso would rip-off Rambo: First Blood Part II; Double Target is slightly outgunned by the more famous Strike Commando, but is a more tightly put-together movie, with just enough plagiarism. With Strike Commando and similar Rambo-styled movies much loved around these parts, how does Double Target hold up?

Taking up the helm as the bulletproof force of American strength this time around is Miles O’Keeffe; O’Keeffe plays Robert Ross (less impressively known as “Bob Ross” throughout the film, though he's an artist with the bazooka here), a Vietnam veteran (what else?) who had a short relationship with a Vietnamese woman before her death and now wants to bring his son back to the States, but is unable to due to official circumstances. His attempt to persuade a councilor to get his son back invariably leads to an encounter with one Russian colonel Galckin (Bo Svenson) before being rescued by American forces. Ross is dropped in front of Senator Blaster (Donald Pleasance) and is given the mission of going into Vietnam to confirm their suspicions of Russian activity, Ross takes this opportunity to also get his son back, but Blaster has given him the limit of getting the mission done in a number of days counted on one hand, and of course, is a complete dick about things. There is an opening scene concerning suicide squads attacking various British and American military personnel, but it really does have no bearing on the story.

It’s a Rambo copy through and through, any scenes Strike Commando did not rip off get their treatment here but with slightly more dignified executions, as far as can be for an unoriginal reproduction (the movie models itself more after Rambo, rather than outright repeat what that film did). The stoic action is interspersed with plenty of cheap acting (watch out for the many instances of extras throwing themselves before a bomb blast actually happens) and oddly-inserted comedic moments that seem to welcome themselves on in. Junkies for things that explode will get their money’s worth; action scenes are delectably filled with screen-filling fireballs the way only Mattei could do them. Keep an eye out for how Robert Ross destroys an entire warehouse with a infinite grenade launcher alone, as well as how the rescue operation of a village involves the destruction of every last hut; Claudio Fragasso, your logic is boundless! Not to mention, the helicopter climax from Rambo resulting in a fistfight between O’Keeffe and Svenson aboard a chopper. Feeling higher-budgeted than most of Mattei’s other flicks, the film has actual helicopters instead of stock footage with the model of chopper constantly changing, as well as some well-masked miniature setpieces. In fact, so lacking in stock footage it is (aside from some footage that may or may not be from Strike Commando, it’s actually difficult to tell as both of these were seemingly made the same year), the only instance of actual recycled film is absolutely gratuitous; it’s a mix of shark documentary footage as well as model shark footage taken from The Last Shark, to make a laughable scene of Robert Ross blowing up one of the predators. It really brings home the film’s B-Movie quality, almost needlessly too, but it seems they had to have something to put a spin on the departure scene from Rambo.

Music, possibly recycled from a few sources, is of higher quality than Strike Commando’s synth medley and lends itself to some well-shot scenes with decent success, rendering some instances in the film quite beautiful (shocking for a film of this calibre, right? Let’s not doubt Mattei’s cinematic eye too much), while the end credits song, a love piece, inappropriately fits itself in but is welcomed thanks to all the other B-grade antics before it. While Miles O’Keeffe is lacking the transcendent exuberance of Reb Brown’s Mike Ransom, he has enough charm to carry the film on his husky-toned sharpness, making up for his wooden style fairly well. Donald Pleasance, no alien to B-Movies despite his major actor status, only ever appears in one set in the entire film, giving the impression all his scenes were shot first so he could get out early, and given O’Keeffe’s performance’s similarity to Snake Plisken (not to mention, not looking a hell of a lot different), he probably felt he was still on the set for Escape from New York. Bo Svenson lazily gets by with an evil grin throughout and an accent that can’t quite decide whether it’s fake Russian or not, he has quite the cold look at least. Other actors include stalwarts and extras of Italian exploitation, such as Mike Monty reprising the exact same role as he did in Strike Commando as the Col. Trautman rip-off, Massimo Vanni rocks his Chuck Norris look as a Russian battling his friend Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, who appears in this as a Belgian aid to Ross. Let’s not forget the pseudonymous Edison Navarro as Ross’ son, acting just as awfully as he did in Strike Commando too. There are plenty of ineptly shot scenes that punch up the questionably unintentional comic factor (the amount of opportunities Ross should be easily gunned down, such as Galckin having his gun right next to his head during a bizarre escape scene), balanced out with some impressive aesthetics, with Miles O’Keeffe smugging his way through the action. It’s an instant recommendation for fans of B-grade cheese and 80s action, Double Target hits everything right.

-James, 22 July 2010 (original date)

• Explosions: 4/5
• "FUCK YEAH": 5/5
• Gratuitous shark: 3/5

Review source: Japanese VHS
Screenshot source: Japanese VHS

Title information

• Production company: Flora Films
• Year of release: 1987/88

Alternative titles:

• Los Heroes Jamas Se Rinden <The Heroes Never Surrender> (Argentinia)  
• Double Target - Cibles à abattre <Double Target - Targets to Kill> (France)
• Der Kampfgigant <The Giant Fight> (West Germany)
• ダブル・ターゲット, "Dabaru taageto" <Double Target> (Japan)

Strike Commando

For a long time I considered Full Metal Jacket my favourite film, for how much I had spent analysing it, as well as how it was virtually perfect in every way. I've had other films that I've shared the same enjoyment with, but all of those have had to be pushed aside for one rogue title, one that's so unoriginal and at the same time so original, one that's not even so-bad-it's-good but instead so utterly transcendent that it is immediately elevated to the highest level of cinematic genius. This title is the 1987 Bruno Mattei epic, Strike Commando.
Before I go on, I have to say that I am almost having trouble thinking of how I want to review this, as this movie is so out-of-this-world, that it deserves not a single spoiler, and that you should make it your job to find a bootleg copy immediately. Find it and revel in one of the most insane experiences that shouldn't be legal to enjoy. For everyone else, read on.  

If you know Mattei, you'll know that this movie steals quite shamelessly from bigger Hollywood titles, and getting knocked off this time around is Rambo: First Blood Part 2 (as well as a bit of Mad Max 3). The Strike Commandos, led by Michael Ransom as played by the blond juggernaut Reb Brown, are trying to get rid of a camp in Vietnam. Unfortunately, the operation goes belly-up when commanding officer Col. Radek (Christopher Connelly) sets off the detonators too quickly because he just wants results, so the Commandos die, save for Ransom, who at the last minute was blown into a lake. Ransom gets washed up at a Vietnamese village led by a French man named Le Due (Luciano Pegozzi, who has played alongside Reb before, most notably in Yor: The Hunter from the Future). There, Ransom befriends a Vietnamese boy called Lao, who has dreams of seeing the wonderland that is America, where ice cream and pop corn grow on trees (if Reb Brown says it, it must be true, Micahael Ransom could never be cold enough to build up a child's hopes). The only thing is, these Vietnamese are beset by the communists, so Ransom volunteers to off them all until he can get back to America, while promising to take the Vietnamese with him. Le Due is killed by an ENORMOUS Russian meathead named Jakoda (Alex Vitale) during the scuffle though, and his body is found by Ransom.

From here it enters into Rambo 2 territory (though that's not to say half the action in this isn't already from Rambo 2, just get sight of Ransom hiding camouflaged against a tree to knife someone); Radek tells Ransom to go back into Vietnam with proof of the communists there (even though Ransom has just dropped a communist badge into his hand that Le Due stole from Jadoka just before he died) and is given a camera, in exchange Ransom wants Radek to liberate the Vietnamese who helped him. Much of this though is immediately tossed aside as Radek is revealed to be in league with the communists and is just trying to off Ramson, what follows is a blood-pumping spectacle of Reb Brown going batshit insane and killing communists left and right for how they murdered Lao and his dream. Ransom's fury is interspersed with drama told through unforgettably funny performances, and some stock footage of helicopters here and there.

Strike Commando is definitive schlock material, but it actually feels like it knows it is. This movie is almost a parody of the many "remakesploitation" movies that so many directors like Mattei were notorious for, especially with villains like Jakoda speaking with a stereotypical Russian accent and spitting "Americanski" at puny red, white and blue-blooded Michael Ransom. Reb gratuitously stabs, blows up and breaks the necks of every commie he comes across, while riddling the rest with bullets and popping one-liners like crazy. Reb is also fucking superhuman in this, being able to swim away from boats a second before they've exploded, not to mention, yelling like a beast after bashing in communist skull. As if the buckets of action weren't enough, the movie ends on an unashamedly funny climax; enjoy a split second of an action man doll being blown up for someone's death before Reb walks off into the sunset, basically laughing at the ridiculousness you've just seen. You can't help but feel everyone walked away from this with a smile on their faces.

While Christopher Connolley's acting skills are the only ones worth a damn, the likes of Reb, Vitale and various others are GOLDEN; you have never seen anguish as handled by a cuddly brick shithouse who is scrunching his face up while holding a dying boy in his hands who is smiling, while telling him about Disneyland. Claudio Fragasso's script is rich with hilarious lines and other dialogue that no one in their right mind should find entertaining. Neither Reb, Vitale or any of the blank-round-firing extras have lines in which the delivery of them fail to amuse. Also, Ransom using a pair of infrared goggles that appear to do nothing but still let him see where the enemy is, bizarre, of course it just leads to him riddling a load of huts with bullets while screaming. You've also got to love him saying goodbye in German when he thinks it's Russian, intentional or not? Who knows.

Production values are fairly middle-of-the-road for Mattei here, there's some decent cinematography but a definite overcharge of stock footage, especially when it seems they were able to get a real helicopter, it's cheap without being too cheap though (see Robowar). Speaking of which, several lines in this re-appear in Robowar, as if part of some running gag, there's also no scarcity of explosions in this, be them huts, miniatures, pools of water or people blowing up.

This is first-hand proof of the entertainment Mattei and his crew were capable of, what's certain is that there is nothing else quite like it. Be sure to check it out, it's an unforgettable ride.

• Explosions: 5/5
• Italy being nice enough to show the world America kicks ass: 5/5
• Reb Brown: Oh god it's off the scale 

-James, 17 October 2009 (original date)

Robowar

Robowar/Robot da Guerra is the most shamelessly unoriginal and near incoherent rip-off of Predator that exists, and for that, I love it dearly. Directed under Bruno Mattei's Vincent Dawn alias, Robowar stars cuddly brick shithouse Reb Brown as Major Murphy Black (better known as "Killzone" according to an unnamed officer in the beginning) and his squad of Vietnam vets, 'BAM', short for "Big Ass Motherfuckers". It mightn't make much sense but these guys pretty much all are shoot-and-ask-questions-next-month anyway; the Motherfuckers include  Cpl. Neil Corey, Alfred "Papa Doc" Bray, Chuck Norris-lookalike Larry "Diddy Bopp" Guarino, Sonny "Blood" Peel and Quang. As you might expect, they're carbon copy clones of the men from Predator, though they are transcendentally likable in their own right.

BAM have been dispatched to a non-descript island on a non-descript mission, coupled with a fairly tubby soldier named Mascher, who is in on the details of their mission, he's just not telling. For that, BAM are pretty much out to kill anything that moves, including corpses (how dead people make a bush rustle is anyone's guess). Preceding all this though is a sequence involving two guys in a helicopter yelling into their radio about something going wrong, down below, a series of first person perspective shots filtered through an amber pixellated screen show people and buildings being blown up while electronic jibberish rambles on. As you would have probably guessed, this chaos is all being caused by the most singularly impressive robot to consist of just a guy in biker clothes with various pieces of plastic painted black glued on. This robot is Omega 1, designed to be the most indestructible and unbeatable weapon in existence, and is armed with some heavy laser weaponry. Quite hilariously, Omega 1 speaks in nothing but unintelligible drivel with only fragments of its utterances making a bit of sense, however, if you can read the language of the subtitles this film was released in (Japanese and Greek to my knowledge, others probably exist), you'll be able to understand the smack it spouts.

There is a subplot involving Murphy and the boys of BAM wiping up the guerillas they discover on the island and rescuing a woman who is about to be tortured (this woman is only named in the credits, revealed to be called "Virgin"), but the main focus is that Mascher was involved in the creation of Omega 1 and is now trying to get it back without revealing info on what it is exactly (and there is a reason for this, but we'll get into it later), a bit of a haphazard tactic, especially if the robot is supposed to be invincible. Omega 1 takes out all of Murphy's men including Mascher, who tries to disable his creation by getting in close with a remote detonator. Before it boils down to Murphy's fight with it, he learns from a tape Mascher left with him that Omega 1 is actually an old friend of his, Lt. Woodring, who was badly wounded in Vietnam, so he was grafted into a cyborg. The final showdown involves Omega 1 being rugby tackled by Reb Brown (breaking from character names for a moment because a robot being rugby tackled by that man is awesome alone), dowsed in napalm and then exploded with its own laser weapon, Murphy and Virgin now need to get off the island.

But wait! Omega 1 somehow survives the explosion (indestructible is right, Mascher would be proud) and chases Murphy as Virgin swims to the boat they've signalled. Eventually, Murphy is confronted at the top of a waterfall, but Omega 1 hands him Mascher's remote device and in a (surprisingly) slightly touching scene, begs a teary-eyed Murphy to destroy him after revealing Woodring's charred face beneath the helmet. It's true that this film is devoid of artistic merit (not exactly a bad thing as it's entertaining as all hell), this scene is actually done fairly well for its focus on Murphy's face and for not using any music. Anything resembling a bit of depth though is immediately flushed away when Reb roars as he jumps down the waterfall and into the pool below, but this film isn't exactly meant to be 'good'.  

Being released in 1989, Robowar is as cheap and as unoriginal as many of these films came; a lot of scenes are direct copies of what was seen in Predator, right down to Reb hurling a knife into an enemy's stomach and delivering a cheap one-liner while winking; the audacity alone puts Arnie to shame. Much of the dialogue is usually nonsensical and mostly hilarious, it sometimes feels like the actors were not working along with the script properly or as if the script was asking for things they didn't have. No one in this movie is a real actor, but for what it's worth, they do a serviceable job, making it more entertaining, not that there's much drama to be had, even if the characters are faced with their friends dying (the quality becomes quite laughable in the few times drama does rear its head though, save for Murphy's brief moment atop the waterfall).

The character of Mascher though is fairly likable as he's both a scientist and a soldier, so the idea of him going after his own work rather than sending someone else is appealing, that and he seems to be played by the only moderately decent actor in the movie (too bad though he was played by Mel Davidson, someone who was notorious for being an asshole and a paedophile on Filipino film sets). The trigger for Lt. Woodring being involved is quite poorly done; Corey finds Guarino's arm and Quang picks up a dogtag from his hand, which is revealed to be Woodring's; was Guarino holding on to it for whatever reason or did the robot leave it there? Either way it's a basic excuse to make mention of the character. The film revels in its redundancies and inconsistencies through Omega 1; the robot wields a whopping big laser gun around even though it has three wrist-mounted guns that all seem to do the same thing, it also carries a knife at one point. Toward the end of the film, Omega 1 loses its gun only for it to magically reappear in its holster, which it struggles to pull out due to malfunctioning, why couldn't it have just used the wrist lasers at that point?

The action is plentiful and even if little of it is constructed very well, it's funnily satisfying; BAM have no sense of ammo conservation but they seem to have an infinite amount of bullets as they unload into everything they see, even if their tried-and-true method fails against Omega 1. The highlight is when they storm an enemy base; shit gets shot up and shit gets blown up, among other brawny action, it's simplistic but it delivers.

The synth score tends to be repetitive but some pieces actually sound quite good, there's even a decent rock song in the credits (in the Japanese version, it appears twice, once in the credits and once in the middle of the film), however, its name or performers aren't listed at all. A soundtrack apparently was released, but I'll be damned if I can find anything on it. As with most productions involving something mechanical when being released in Japan, there is a small schematic diagram, either included on the box or released in promotional material, if you didn't guess already, Robowar somehow has one on a promotional flyer as if it's really supposed to interest people in its genius mechanical design.

It should be noted that the end credits get Peel and Guarino's names mixed-up, and calls Reb Brown's character "Marthy" as well as calling Papa Doc "Arthur", instead of Alfred. Robowar also seems to be damned with some hideous poster art; the one most used in Europe features a robot that just barely resembles Omega 1, with an out-of-proportion head that is sometimes cut off by the blades of a helicopter in the distance. Not only that, but it wields a crossbow that doesn't appear in the film and holds it at an angle that shouldn't be possible with the way the fist is balled. Only the Japanese VHS cover looks somewhat attractive, though there is one that goes all out and even rips off the Predator font.

Taking place in a jungle that is far from exotic with gun-nut characters and a plot that steals liberally from Predator as well as pinching a bit from RoboCop, bad movie lovers can't go wrong with Bruno Mattei and his one-robot Robowar. I would probably pick this any day over the many charmless action movies produced nowadays.

• Gibberish: 5/5
• Tactical ability and stealth of BAM: 1/5
• Blank round usage: 5/5 

-James, 09 September 2009 (original date)