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)