Welcome Home Soldier Boys

A bus dumps our returning veterans back into the United States while country & western plays. Joe Don Baker channels Elvis Presley with his puffy-eyed, thick-lipped pouting, while their homecoming falls apart around them. A Cadillac is procured. A road trip out west is on the itinerary, where dreams await. At every stop along the way, something happens to dampen the enthusiasm of the returning heroes. Locals cheat them at every turn and grumble about the war. "Back when we fought a war, we didn't come home til the war was over!" growls a gang of grumpy Korean War Vets while Joe Don Baker does the slow burn.Things come to a head during a stop in New Mexico when our boys take all the crap they can swallow and explode in a killing frenzy.Rambo and Rolling Thunder were soon to follow...

Really not much of a welcome home for four Vietnam Green Berets. Along the road, on the way to California, they are treated with almost total indifference or slightly worse. Their trip through Texas and into New Mexico is mostly girl chasing, with one tragic event early on. Eventually the old Caddy breaks down. Out of money and out of gas, Joe Don Baker instigates a final confrontation with the locals, who prove no match for four Green Berets. Soon the National Guard arrives on the scene with some real fire power, and suddenly it's war in New Mexico. With thankfully zero car chases, and several interesting stops along the way, "Welcome Home Soldier Boys" is an intriguing road film you should see. - MERK

Discharged soldiers, just back from Viet Nam, decide to drive across country and see the nation they protected. The country doesn't want to see them, and after being hustled by a hooker, their car breaks down in a small town that doesn't treat them well. Their revenge makes Rambo's look like gentile tea party.

One of the many angry vet goes nuts films that popped up through the 1970's. Despite the fact that 20th Century Fox released this this is pure drive-in fodder. The film isn't really that good, but is made watchable and memorable by the total destruction of the town. Personally everyone had it coming on all sides, except the audience who has to wait an hour through bad acting to get to the good stuff. Containing what is probably the single worst performance of Joe Don Baker (Mitchell) this is the sort of movie that makes you really wonder how he was ever considered a star and leads you to the inescapable conclusion that Baker is rightly the punchline of jokes. I say this as someone who likes him as an actor.

If you get to see this just watch the end, where the mismatched gun shots (how many different noises can a single machine gun make?) make this worth seeing.

"Welcome Home, Soldier Boys" is a fun movie if you check your mind at the door. I saw the film in a cheap Tokyo theater while attending Sophia University on G.I. Bill payments I had earned through 4 years in the air force including one year in Vietnam. With "Welcome Home Soldier Boys" the viewer rides along with four Vietnam vets who buy a large touring car (a black Cadillac, if I remember correctly) as they drive east after being discharged on the West Coast. Within a few hours they pick up a female hitch-hiker and have sex with her in the back seat of the rambling car. They offer her something like two hundred dollars but she intends to extort A LOT more than that out of them since, as she points out, they have just transported her over a state line which makes their activities a felony. An argument ensues, followed by an altercation that accidentally results in the young lady falling out of the car at 65 miles per hour. "What do you think?" one of them asks Joe Don Baker, the still recognized ranking man. "I think she should have taken the two hundred dollars." Interrupted by a few pleasant moments, a series of disappointments and frustrations gradually eats away at the patience of the four Vietnam vets. The last straw is when they run out of gasoline in a small town. What happens next makes the wrath of Rambo against the small Oregon town look like a model of restraint.

I see much praise being given to the movie for multiple reasons, most of which I agree with. I did enjoy Angelsunchanied review which covers the major points.

The reception many returning vets recieved varied and for multiple reasons.

Many of the difficulties vets go thru returning to civilian life is also protrayed.

I enjoyed the acting and performances overall but I take issue that professionally trained Green Berets, not one or 2 but 4 would react as they did, especially at the end. Rangers or Grunts maybe.