Strike Commando

Reb Brown stars in an incredibly bad, yet still very entertaining popcorn action flick set in the jungles of Vietnam.

Brown plays Michael Ransom, a Green Beret sent on a risky mission which goes awry. He manages to get back to his own lines, only to wind up on another botched mission. While interred in an enemy POW camp, he discovers that his CO is actually working for the KGB, and escapes to seek revenge.

While the plot is rather contrived, the movie manages to deliver loads of cheesy entertainment - much more than you'll get from WHERE EAGLES DARE or any Hollywood action movie. The combat scenes basically consist of Brown firing his M-16, AK-47 or some other high-powered weapon in the general direction of the enemy, who all fall down. The VC are completely inept; none of them seem to know how to aim or fire a weapon or even turn around when fired upon. Brown manages to get away with just about anything - including sending radio messages to his own troops - while the VC just watch and appear helpless.

The acting is just as bad, especially from Brown. He manages to look strong and fearless, even after being beaten, burned and electrocuted by the enemy. He goes through every one of his scenes shouting at the top of his lungs - no matter what the scenario. Every time he fires a weapon he hollers "Whuaa" at the top of his lungs till your TV speakers will explode. In support, Alex Vitale is a scary-looking but never really frightening Russian bad guy, who's storming around the jungle helping the VC try to kick American butt. Luciano Pigozzi (TIGER JOE) is on hand in the first act as a witty French peasant. The supporting cast is pretty lame; one Vietnamese villager comes up to Ransom and says in fear: "We're, like, sitting ducks". Hmm, sounds a little on the side of American slang, doesn't it?

Add to the list of goof-ups and stupid stuff… one long, pointless scene involving Vitale and a snake; a real actor replaced in mid-scene with a child-sized dummy in a different position; some really bad-looking explosions; a man obviously clad in asbestos cloth as he's "burned" by a flamethrower; really, really badly edited Vietnam-era stock shots of helicopters flying around Vietnam … the list goes on and on.

On the plus side, the Luigi Ceccarelli score is crummy synthesizer material, but is pretty catchy and fast-moving. The jungle appears steamy and looks pretty lush and is very convincing (yet, none of the actors seem to be affected by the heat, bugs and such?). Mike Monty does a nice, appreciated turn as Ransom's commanding officer.

I saw STRIKE COMMANDO on a Brazilian videotape. The image was a little over-tinted, grainy and had occasional damage. The stock footage looks really worn out, too. The explosions are really, really bright - too bright - but this could be a fault of the film crew, not the video distributor. The cassette has slightly distracting Portuguese subtitles.

What the heck. It's a really bad movie - technically bad, badly written and badly acted - but it's an entertaining 2 hour trip into the world where the good guys always win despite insurmountable odds.

RATING: 5/10

This is an exploitative rip-off of the big budgeted and succesful mega-action thriller Rambo . Here Reb Brown stars as Michael Ransom a hunk soldier who takes on enemies to rescue prisoners or other trapped platoons . At a risked mission he meets a besieged group of local natives led by a French : Allan Collins . When things go wrong , Ransom seeks vengeance against a nasty Russian officer : Alex Vitale who is supporting the Nam guerrilla .

Cheap and exploitative movie taking parts here and there of classics as the expensive "Rambo" by George Pan Cosmatos with Sylvester Stallone and "Missing in action" by Joseph Zito with Chuck Norris . This Strike Commando 1986 packs thrills , chills , grisly tortures , shootouts , jungle outdoors filmed in Philippines Islands , lots of explosion and catching musical score composed by means of synthesizer by Luigi Ceccarelli . In the movie shows up some secondaries, ordinary in B-Italian fims , and most of them playing in Bruno Mattei films, such as : the prolific Luciano Pigozzi or Allan Collins nicknamed the Italian Peter Lorre , Christopher Connelli , Mike Monty , Massimo Vanni , uncredited William Berger , and Clyde Anderson or Claudio Fragasso himself who often appeared as cameos and brief interventions. Special mention for the extremely baddie Russian played by Alex Vitale giving a very sadistic acting following the wake of oriental villain hoodlums as Harold Sakata of Goldfinger and Professor Tanaka of Missing in Action. Followed by a sequel in similar style titled "Trappola Diabolica or Strike Commando II" 1988 with Brent Huff as Michael Ransom , Mary Stavin and a miscast Richard Harris himself .

The motion picture in medium budget was regular but professionally directed by Bruno Mattei , assisted by his usual collaborator Claudio Fragasso who also wrote the script along with his wife Rossella Drudi . Deceased Bruno Mattei often used Vincent Dawn pseudonym , he made a large number of films in all kinds of genres as Vietnam wartime, terror , erotic , nunexploitation , Sword and Sandals , Spaghetti Western, Documentary , Mondo Cinema, Women in Prison or WIP , and some of them shot in Philippines as "Robowar" , "Strike Commando I" , "Strike Commando II" , "Double Target" and "Born to Fight" . Rating : 5/10, passable and acceptable , though very cheesy . The film will appeal to Italian Vietnam sub-genre aficionados.

My review was written in November 1987 after watching the movie on International Video Entertainment video cassette.

"Strike Commando" is a run-of-the-mill Italian war picture imitating "Rambo". Made last year, pic was recently given a token release in Kansas City, ahead of its current home video availability.

Reb Brown fits the bill as brawny Michael Ransom, sole survivor of a deadly mission in Vietnam by the crack Strike Commando force. Befriended by local villages, he spots Russianofficers in action and is sent back in by his commander (Christopher Connelly) to get photographic evidence of he Russkies.

With dumb dialog (beefy Russian played by Alex Vitale insists on calling the hero "Americanski"), pic slavishly imitates the second "Rambo" film leading to a touch of "Rocky IV" (bare-knuckled fight between the two musclemen) as well. At least a reel or two overlong, film has an idiotic, padded coda set about 15 years later in Manila.

Some okay minor action scenes do not disguise the fact that the film lacks the large-scale set pieces that have become de rigueur for Vietnam war pics. Worst scene has Brown unsuccessfully (in an obvious stretch) simulating tears and pathos as he holds a dying little Vietnamese boy in his arms -cut to him with machine gun in hand bellowing a war cry, fully motivated.

Strike Commando (1987)

* (out of 4)

Reb Brown plays a Green Beret in Vietnam who is on a secret mission but gets screwed over by his team. Pretty soon he finds himself in a POW camp but he breaks free and then heads out to destroy a campy villain and an entire Army.

STRIKE COMMANDO was directed by the one and only Bruno Mattei and that should tell you all you need to know. If you're familiar with Mattei then you know he was basically a director-for-hire who would patch up movies or rip them off and form his own movies. Very few of them were any good but hte majority of them did fit into the "so bad they're good" category and that's pretty much where this movie is.

There's no question that the performances are horrid, the dubbing awful and the direction is laughable at times. The editing is even worse and it's really hard to understand what exactly is going on. The action scenes are poorly stages and at times you have to wonder who is shooting at who. The budget was obviously very low and this is apparently by the way people just drop dead without being shot. Yes, there are no bullet holes, blood or anything else.

This film was obviously an attempt to rip-off RAMBO. In pure Italian cinema terms, this is an awful film on so many levels but at the same time there's a certain charm to the badness. If you're a fan of these Italian war pictures then this here is pretty darn awful from start to finish but is that what fans want?

Directed by Vincent Dawn (ie Bruno Mattei) this is quite the shoddiest and worst acted war film in living memory. The plot "Ha!" is a direct steal from Rambo First Blood Part II with loser actor Reb Brown as a poor man's Stallone seeking revenge on a Colonel who deserted him and his buddies in Vietnam.

Brown continually shouts "Rah!" and "Die!" about a million times and good job too as when he is required to act, his lines are delivered in an atrociously wooden manner. I do feel (and hope) that director Vincent Dawn (Zombie Creeping Flesh) was taking the pi** slightly - if not then he is surely the worst film-maker in the entire world.

There are many hilarious moments such as when Brown awakes from a nightmare screaming and for no reason everybody else in the room stars screaming - including a small monkey. He then stumbles and falls backwards out of a raised hut!

I reckon this movie could have been made by a twelve year old. How on earth do such useless directors as Dawn get producers to waste their money on this crap? Can you imagine the premiere of this movie (well there probably wasn't one!) and to see the looks on the investors faces when they were shown what their money had been spent on.

No wonder Bruno Mattei has all these pseudonyms; Vincent Dawn, Norman Dawn(II), Bob Hunter(IV) etc - it's so he can pretend that he didn't actually make this hopeless mess of a movie. I also can't believe Dawn made a sequel to this - jesus, has the man no shame?