User reviews

Director Steve Carver! Action star Michael Dudikoff! An action adventure delight!? Throw in actors Donald Pleasance, Robert Vaughn (both playing Nazis), Herbert Lom and L.Q Jones. Sounding good. Set in the Amazon jungle with its many beauties and but also constant dangers. Oh this should be humidly exciting, but the cheaply produced Cannon production shortly gave way for complete tedium. Carver… tedium? No way. Dudikoff… tedium? Can't be. But it's a yes indeed. Well more so the first 45 minutes (although within that time we are treated with some midget boxing and the intro is cool enough with its atmospheric score) and after that it somewhat picks up in something of a stop and go affair. It took me two sittings to watch it, as the first time I could only get halfway through it before dozing off. Lucky I recorded so I could sit there and try to watch it again, but it did kind of get better the further along it went.

Dudikoff plays Hamilton an adventurer who becomes an Amazon guide for a doctor and his daughter in their quest to find the origins of a deadly disease that's affecting the natives. There they end up at the lost city, where the doctor is killed and the daughter captured. Hamilton manages to escape and barely makes back to civilisation. There he recovers, gathers a team and heads back to rescue the girl… but others in the party have their own motivations (gold, justice and revenge--hurt feelings) especially the man (Donald Pleasance) backing the expedition who believes a Third Reich Nazi doctor (Robert Vaughn) hides out in the lost city continuing his sadistic experiments.

The plot is adapted of an Alistair MacLean novel and it comes across as dumb low-grade pulp. It throws around shadily random developments, growing mystic, devious twists (whom playing whom?) and one-note characters (who seem to be looking for death) in a very muddled, paper-thin fashion. Very talkie at times, sluggishly paced and constantly inconsistent, but the action does have its moments. Probably a little too repetitive and not as explosive (but there are numerous explosions). Still it's gritty and unpleasant, as the party when they not flying, hiking or using their riverboat they are thwarted by Amazon pirates, aggressive natives and of course evil Nazis led by a mad scientist (Vaughn is simply wasted here) who just wants to take over the world. Pleasance (who masterfully hams it up "Hey Wolfie") and Vaughn's exchanges are just odd, mainly in the opening sequences which do set everything up. Vaughn's blank, cold-hearted turn suit's the character, but was he really acting. Hard to tell. Dudikoff is acceptable, always having that concern look on his face. Maybe info overload. It was better when he stop thinking and went heroic --- a prophecy in the making. But it wasn't as funny as his croaky narration… please somebody hand him a cough lolly. Director Carver ("An Eye for an Eye (1981)" & "Lone Wolf McQuade (1983)") crafts out an old-fashion stapling, where it's resourcefully executed but lacking the energy and ticker to sustain its long-winded running-time. When not using staged sets, he makes good use of it sweaty locations (South Africa) with some nice scenic shots.

Cheesy, Low-Budget, but Colorful Action/Adventure with Scary looking and Color Coordinated Amazonian Tribesmen, South American Nazis Circa 1965, Big Haired Babes, and Non-Actor and Fan Favorite Michael Dudikoff.

Along for the Fun is Robert Vaughn and Donald Pleasance Playing Dueling Old Fogie Nazis. The Pacing is too Slow and the Action Lackluster and looking Staged, the Film has Complications like Biological Scourges, and a Hidden Jungle City that Go virtually Nowhere.

The Movie may Take Itself Too Seriously to be much Fun, but it Ends Up being a little Entertaining if You can Get into It. Whether it's Worth the Try will be a Matter of Tolerance and Taste.

Overall, Average for this Type of Pre-CGI, Direct to Video Stuff. It's a Canon Production and the Hacks there Did and Do Have a Fan Base for this Type of Glossy Trash.

I'm sure that the original novel by Alistair McLean was a whole lot better than this film would indicate. It would almost have to be. This is a style of film making not seen since the pleasant days of Republic and Monogram Pictures were active. It's almost like a bad serial without as many chapter breaks.

A Mengele like scientist played with relish by Robert Vaughn as the Allied armies are closing in on both sides of Nazi Germany has to flee. Those concentration camp inmates, wonderful subjects for experimentation are going to become unavailable shortly and he wants to continue his research. He kills a Swiss investigator and his SS backer Donald Pleasance he merely wounds in a rather stupid double cross.

Fast forward twenty years to the Sixties and two fisted adventurer Michael Dudikoff is looking for a lost Inca city in the Amazon head waters where all kinds of strange things have been happening to the natives. All sorts of other people want to get to the city as well for varying motives. They team up with the intrepid Dudikoff leading the motley expedition.

River Of Death is a throwback to those old action adventure films that used to be churned out of those B studios by the bucket load. That's not necessarily a good thing. It might have been better had this been a satire of same, but River Of Death is as serious as a crutch.

What a serial this could have been, river pirates, corrupt police, lost city, Nazi scientists, what more could you want?

This movie is the pits. The worst kind of B film making. The acting isn't bad, but that's not saying much. Robert Vaughn and Donald Pleasance are included in the cast, and sleep walk their way through their respective scenes. Dudikoff doesn't do much apart from wandering about and mouthing his dialogue. There is some gun play and pyrotechnics later on in the movie, but the pace is so deadly slow you probably won't notice. The jungle locale' isn't used to good effect, and the photography is listless. This movie is a pointless exercise in monotony. There is nothing to get your teeth into, the scenario is so uninteresting, it all amounts to very little. Even Dudikoff fans won't be able to find anything redeeming about this outing. Consider the bullet dodged.

River Of Death tells the story of an adventurer who helps a mysterious man and woman track down a nazi criminal who has been experimenting all kinds of nasty stuff on people and tribal villagers. Along the way there are attacks by natives, lots of martial arts and downbeat ending in this adaption of the novel. River Of Death is actually more well made than the usual Cannon output at the time. Indeed the production values are adequate and Dudikoff makes for a decent rough and tumble hero. However this just isn't very exciting material, which consists of bored performances (Pleasance and Vaughn) which show us the reality that nobody wanted to give anything but the bare minimum of effort. The tribal attacks do make some impact but most of the way through this rather sub-par stuff.

*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)

This thrilling picture deals with an adventurer named Hamilton (Michael Dudikiff) who decides to go in search of the lost city in the Amazon jungle , entering the dangerous world of a forgotten tribe . A motley crew of other people (Donald Pleasence , Herbert Lom , L.Q. Jones) in search of wealth , tripping over Neo-Nazi scientific and war criminals . But to their terror they find out that they have bit off more than they can think . As a Nazi doctor (Rovert Vaughn) , Joseph Mengele-alike , still doing his experiments on people in the same place and endeavouring to reconstitute the Nazi movement from his Amazonian sanctuary by creating an army and a deadly weapon .

This absurd and mindless adventure/thriller deals with a misfit crew who travels Amazons , being led by star Michael Dudikoff along with other people with reasons of their own decide to join him for the wealth of the lost city . The picture contains frenetic action , thrills , intrigue , shootouts with no much sense and a silly finale . The story is a crossover between Indiana Jones adventures , ¨Boys from Brazil¨ and films about tribes of Amazons . But it results to be too complex to be harmlessly agreeable . The acting of the little interesting characters is unbelievable and unconvincing . Good support cast , though widely wasted , including notorious secondaries such as Robert Vaughn as Wolfgang Manteuffel , Donald Pleasence as Heinrich Spaatz ,Herbert Lom as Colonel Ricardo Diaz and special mention to L.Q. Jones or Justus McQueen who still today playing . Based on an Alistair MacLean's novel , a best-selling author , whose stories have been much better rendered in other occasions . Alistair employed the pseudonym Ian Stuart several times in order to prove that his books were best-sellers due to their content and not solely because his name appeared on the cover. This is one of the several adaptations based on his novels and most of them set in WW2 , such as the successful ¨Where the eagles dare¨ and ¨Guns of Navarone¨ . Furthermore, ¨Ice Station Cebra¨ that is the first of two movies based on an Alistair MacLean novel set in rugged icy and snowy terrain , the second would be ¨Bear Island¨ . ¨Ice Station Zebra¨ is one of two filmed Alistair MacLean adaptations directed by John Sturges , the other was ¨The Satan Bug¨ made and released about three years earlier . ¨River of Death¨ produced in low budget by Avi Lerner and British Harry Alan Towers was middlingly directed by Steve Carver . He's an expert on action/thriller genre such as ¨Capone¨, ¨Big Bad Mama¨, ¨Steel¨, Drum¨ and directed two successful hits for Chuck Norris as ¨Lone McQuade¨ and ¨An eye for eye¨. His last films have been failed as ¨The wolves¨, ¨Dead center¨ and this ¨River of death¨ . Rating : below average . Too ridiculous for the complexity to be worth watching .

One of Alistair MacLean's poorest books becomes one of the poorest films based on one of his books in this jungle dud. Michael Dudikoff leads the expedition into the heart of the Amazon, culminating in some silly revelatory scenes in which most of the characters turn out to be someone other than who we thought they were. It transpires that they all have various motives for searching for a Nazi scientist in a lost city, but none of the revelations are very convincing. The actors have done better work, some of them have been in great movies (Donald Pleasance, Robert Vaughn) but none of them would be proud of this. It's purely a case of them taking the money and running. Even the jungle backdrop is under-used. You'd think that a film set in the jungle would at least have pretty scenery and some spectacular photography....but oh no, not this one!

Michael Dudikoff stars as John Hamilton a mercenary who fights off deadly tribes and a sadistic Nazi who is still continuing his work in the jungle in this deathly dull affair. Dudikoff is just woeful here while the rest of the cast that include Donald Pleasance and Robert Vaughn are wasted in their roles. Boredom is all that floats in this river.

This is the stuff I live for, truly do! Despite negative reviews and low ratings, I secretly had very high hopes for "River of Death", and the actual film still surpassed them. As far as yours truly is concerned, it's a fast-paced and exhilarating trash gem with phenomenal stars (Donald Pleasance, Robert Vaughn, Herbert Lom, LQ Jones...) in deviant roles, evil Nazis, savage Amazon jungle-tribes, nasty river pirates, fiendish medical experiments, Lost Cities and exploding helicopters! The poster proudly features the name of prominent writer Alistair MacLean, but the demented tale might as well have sprouted from the mind of over-enthusiast Italian scriptwriters who also penned down the delicious Indiana Jones clones, like "Ark of the Sun God" or "Hunters of the Golden Cobra".

Regardless of the fact WWII is coming to an end and Germany is defeated, megalomaniacal Nazi Doctor Wolfgang Manteuffel (Vaughn) doesn't consider his work finished, and he closes a pact with the unscrupulous General Heinrich Spaatz (Pleasance) to flee to South America and continue his experiments. 20 years later, the adventurous mercenary Hamilton (Michael Dudikoff) reluctantly accepts an assignment to trace down the mysterious Lost City, which is reputedly hidden deep in the Amazon jungle, surrounded by hostile native tribes. None of the expedition members is to be trusted, and most of them have a vengeful score to settle. This is just a very brief and general description of the plot, mind you, since "River of Death" is the type of film full of plot twists and sub stories; and each crazier than the next.

I'm really baffled by the harshness of some of the other reviews around here. Don't know what these people were expecting to see, but "River of Death" is quite the opposite of "dull" and "boring". Of course, the film has several flaws. Dudikoff's wannabe Humphrey Bogart style of narrating is quite irritating and the entire climax is kind of disappointing, but overall seen "River of Death" ensures a tremendous good time!

Why does this film have such a low rating? It's a perfectly decent adventure film. It's handled really well by director Steve Carver. The ensemble performances are fine. The photography is decent. It does really well on a low budget. I enjoyed this movie more the second time around, and I'll watch it again.

I wouldn't be surprised if I were reading too much into it, but when I'm looking at a movie called RIVER OF DEATH, in which Nazi scientist Robert Vaughn wears a swastika armband on his white lab coat while shooting the nice SS officer, and adventurer Michael Dudikoff goes looking for a lost city only to find a secret Nazi city run by Vaughn, I stop to wonder if I'm looking at a burlesque. A very dry burlesque. With nothing funny about it. Even if it is based on a novel by the same title, written by Alistair MacLean.

When I write there's nothing funny about it, I mean there's nothing I laughed, smiled, or thought "that's funny" about. There are some things that other people might find funny, like the black-and-white-painted naked jungle ninjas, the wrestling dwarves, or the cabaret singer who croons a love song to a plastic skeleton like she's Marlene Dietrich seducing Emil Jannings. I wouldn't think to tell you what you find funny, and if you think this is funny, well, you're entitled to your own opinion.

And if you do, get away from me.

Michael Dudikoff goes Indiana Jones in this jungle adventure yarn about former Nazi scientists operating in the depths of the Amazon. Okay, so Dudikoff is no Harrison Ford (who is?), but he comes off well as the same kind of hero, even if he doesn't get to do as much adventuring as Indy does. He just sort of walks through the jungle for most of the film, leading a group of people through treacherous territory and avoiding killer river pirates. I've only seen this one a couple times (despite having it on video), but I could never really tell what the point of whole thing was. I guess I need to watch it more closely next time. All I know is former Nazi commander Donald Pleasance (great as always) wants something to do with former Nazi scientist Robert Vaughn, and I know the girl who's part of the team wants revenge on Vaughn for killing a relative of her's during World World II. Veteran character actor L.Q. Jones lends his always-welcome presence in a small role. Based on a novel by Alistair McLean, RIVER OF DEATH is no RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. In fact, I would say that it's probably my least-favorite jungle adventure movie without a whole lot going for it, other than Dudikoff playing a different type of character, some okay scenes, and some nice location shoots. Even jungle adventure movie fans might be disappointed.

This movie was as fun as enema. The "plot" is full of cliches, the actors certainly werent after any Oscars ( I wonder how an actor of the calibre of Pleasance was talked into this bizarre freak show?) Dudikoff does some of the worst acting in the history of film. The last insult was the german accent imitation by Vaughn and the anonymous German captain.

Directed by Steve Carver. Starring Michael Dudikoff, Donald Pleasence, L.Q. Jones, Herbert Lom, Cynthia Erland, Robert Vaughn, Sarah Maur Thorp, Alain D. Woolf, Foziah Davidson, Gordon Mulholland, Rufus Swart, Victor Melleny. (R)

Leaden-paced jungle "adventure" with Dudikoff leading a small group into the Amazon (all with their own separate, murky reasons for going), fighting off natives, river pirates and boredom, to get to a lost city where a Nazi mad scientist is doing...stuff. "Apocalypse Now," it ain't. Unnecessarily convoluted plot is no compensation for the perfunctory, poorly-staged action scenes. Hard to say what's more listless: Dudikoff's performance or Dudikoff's inner thought narration; meanwhile, it's always sad to see once respectable actors like Robert Vaughn and Donald Pleasence cash a check and sleepwalk through a crummy movie. Based on a novel by Alistair MacLean, but this is light years from the likes of "Where Eagles Dare" and "The Guns of Navarone."

21/100

This movie was made and released about 8 years after its source novel of the same name by Alistair MacLean was first published in 1981. "River of death" was MacLean's 24 novel and this movie was the 15 film adaptation of one of MacLean's stories. It's the first filmed adaptation of an Alistair MacLean to be made and released after the author had passed way. First and only made for cinema filmed adaptation of an Alistair MacLean story to be made and released during the 80s. Final to date made for cinema adaptation of an Alistair MacLean story.

I haven't read the book , but I 've heard that it's one of MacLean's poorest books. So it's really no wonder that the movie sucks too. Michael Dudikoff is John Hamilton , a mercenary who leads the expedition into the heart of the Amazon in search of Nazi scientist. It turns out that they all have various motives for searching for a Nazi scientist in a lost city, but none of this is believable or interesting. Most of the characters turn out to be someone other than who we thought they were. It might look good on paper , but in reality it's all forgettable.

The characters are VERY one dimensional , the twists are unconvincing and the plot is paper thin. The movie is TERRIBLY directed. It's strange , because director Steve Carver made some decent Chuck Norris movie before ("Lone wolf McQuade"). Here the pacing is sluggish , the action is lame and there is too much talking.

Dudikoff is capable B class actor , but he is lost here. Good actors like Donald Pleasance and Robert Vaughn are wasted. Even the Amazon scenery seems underused. There is no pretty scenery or good photography.

It's dull, dull ,dull. It's a cure for insomnia. It's the worst kind of B movie making. It's not even "so bad it's good" type of B class movie. I give it 1/10.

This is the worst film ever and as waste of time, money and life as I watched painfully throughout the whole of film what I thought was a jungle action adventure but trailed off into the unknown and found itself in the genre of crapness. DO NOT WATCH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!!

Never before was the sleekly exciting, panther paced, high adventuring, blockbusting literature of Alistair MacLean more deliriously distilled into high-octane celluloid than in the bullet-blasted, cannibal-defying, adrenalin-spiking, Amazon-jungle adventuring of Cannon Films explosively exhilarating, Teutonic tyrant thrashing, entertainingly old school, 80s B-Movie thrill-fest, 'River of Death'!

Dynamically directed with a barnstorming belligerence by groovy genre maverick, Steve 'Lone wolf McQuade' Carver, his rollicking deep river adventure is given an ample boost by the celluloid-melting performances of scorching-hot genre stalwarts: L. Q. Jones, Herbert Lom, Donald Pleasence, plus an evilly charismatic, Robert Vaughan, and pushing the alpha levels to the very limits of human plausibility is the incandescent, star-making performance of buff, heroically handsome 'American Ninja' icon, that swiftly karate chopping, bullyboy-blasting, steel-thewed, badass B-Movie dude, Michael Dudikoff himself! Righteously renewed on this pristine-looking 88 films Blu-ray edition, the future looks bright for this rewardingly rumbustious, Amazon-set, pirate-packed, non-stop 80s action bonanza from those beloved opportunistic exploitation behemoths, Cannon Films! Terminally tweaked German scientists, blood-mad pirates, carnage-crazed cannibals, major league machine gunning mayhem, and eternal VHS-hero, Michael Dudikoff, 'River of Death' is more than we deserve!