Assault Platoon

'Assault Platoon' is one of many Filipino movies about Vietnam War, Prison camps etc. 7 former soldiers are hired to rescue prisoners from Vietnamese Prison camp. Obviously nothing is easy as it would seem to be... Antonio Reyes tried hard to make a very serious movie instead of regular Filipino trashy commando flicks. Can't blame him for trying but he really failed to deliver any entertainment. You can't go too serious with a same budget(very low) and very same faces from usual Filipino b- grade films. Storyline is pretty much the same like in million other war flicks, characters are not well developed, acting is non existent, special effects(if any) are cheesy and that would be completely cool with me if there would be a space for entertainment but sadly there wasn't. Everything is death serious which took all my fun. I was expecting something like Teddy Page movies and got a poor version of 'Platoon' or 'Rambo 2'. 'Assault Platoon' is obviously watchable, easy going movie but nothing to get excited about. Robert Marius plays the lead and he does a good job as usual with fighting/shooting/ shouting, not much space for acting and I believe he had better acting gigs('Cop Game' would be a good example). There is quite a lot of cheap shootouts, some fights and tortures but no - It's not gory, not that brutal as Filipino movies usually are and not that tense like I was hoping it would be. All in all, 'Assault Platoon' is rather forgettable movie. Too serious to be fun and to cheesy to be serious. Watch it once if you can find it, but It's not worth paying fortune to track down a copy.

The "behind-enemy-lines-rescue" is a reliable plot but it fails here largely because the movie doesn't seem to know what point it's trying to make. Having U.S. Air Force pilots dropping gas-bombs on innocent civilians would seem to position the movie as a condemnation of American involvement in Vietnam. However, showing those Vietnamese fighting against the Americans to be commanded by brutes who rape and torture and kill helpless prisoners blurs the line between "good guys" and "bad guys." The audience is left with no one to root for, (especially since none of the characters is of any interest or value), and the movie is written in too shallow a way to allow it to claim to be "dark" or "cynical." Making things worse is the movie's tendency to pad its footage with extended and unnecessary scenes, such as all those shots of characters trudging through the jungle accompanied by monotonous music.

This movie has acquired a cult reputation, however, because of a scene from it posted on YouTube. This scene shows the torture of the two captured USAF pilots. These pilots - young, hairy, attractive, and soaked with sweat - are only seen from the waist up but apparently they've been stripped naked and apparently they're being subjected to electric shocks delivered directly to their genitals. It's rare that the movies show or even imply genital torture. It's also rare to show manly torture victims screaming at the top of their lungs as these two pilots do. (They're played by Jim Dixon and Bernard Higgins.) Compare this scene to a similar one in "Rambo 2." Sylvester Stallone is also subjected to electroshock torture but he's allowed to keep his pants on, thus putting his genitals "off-limits." He also doesn't lower himself by screaming but instead allows himself only a few grunts of discomfort. Needless to say, the torture scene in "Assault Platoon" is far more convincing, far more memorable.