Only the fact that this Rambo knock-off somehow beat Rambo III to the punch with its Afghan setting does little to lift this absolutely dull and routine action movie with lots of action but not the budget or energy to make any of it exciting.
Basically another "mercenaries in the jungle" flick, minus a jungle, Days of Hell follows the adventures of a group of four soldiers of fortune bumbling around Afghanistan and blowing things up. It's honestly only about half as fun as it sounds, as much of the footage of the said killing and exploding is itself recycled over and over. Conrad Nichols plays the group leader of course, obediently followed by his friendly underlings Michael J. Fox-lookalike Ottaviano Dell'Acqua and Jorge Rivero-lookalike Howard Ross, while Werner Pochath is of course the overbearing loose cannon of the team. Officially their mission, as relayed by corporate bigwig Stelio Candelli is to rescue some Japanese woman and her father from Afghanistan. Of course the whole thing is just a big setup to hide some sort of international conspiracy to ship chemical weapons to Iraq or something, but it's nothing too big for our stalwart seemingly infallible and invincible heroes to crack. The most entertainment comes in trying to decide whether they kill more Russian soldiers or Afghan rebels.
Oh yeah, one particular little Afghan boy joins the group and proves his mettle by killing Russians. Also, Riccardo Petrazzi pops by as the requisite scummy assassin who (of course) double-crosses the group and (even more of course) gets killed. (stretch) (yaaawwnnn
.)
Well, I have nothing against action movies. In fact I prefer to watch movies with a relatively high number of explosions and people getting shot and falling down. But for Pete's sake, would it be too much to ask for a little variety with this premise? This movie contains absolutely zero tension, surprises, or climaxes. There are several action scenes with plentiful gun-play, but they quickly grow repetitive and tiresome. It's pretty obvious that the "Afghan" locations are actually the Italian woods, and it's curious that no matter where the heroes are, they still seem to be stuck in the same field near a very Alpine-looking forest. It's also pretty obvious that only one of the voice dubbers (Ted Rusoff) actually spoke Russian, as every Russian in the movie speaks with the same distinct voice, as do a couple of the other characters!
The funniest thing about the action scenes has to be Conrad Nichols (AKA Bruno Minniti) and his hilariously underwhelming enthusiasm. He seems to sleepwalk through his role until he whips out a gun and starts shooting, at which point he never fails to open his mouth making the weirdest "shooting face" that I've ever seen. He basically just stares forward with his jaw gaping EVERY time he fires his miniature CAR- 15. He looks like Charlie Sheen perpetually saying "booga booga!", of course minus the audio. The rest of the cast looks pretty bored, except for the many extras who die over and over again. Bland photography and unremarkable synthesizer music supposedly by Francesco De Masi don't help things either.
Days of Hell is a decidedly rare action movie that will probably stay that way. While it's perhaps somewhat more unintentionally funny than most of Ricci's other efforts, the sheer dullness on display sinks it into the realm of forgettable action.
