Featuring one of the best rocking 80s theme songs, gratuitous slow motion gun shooting and ammo wasting, exploding huts, stock footage of exploding huts, explosions, and an incredible car chase that looks like it involves miniatures, this has all the hallmarks of a Bruno Mattei movie. I did like the story to this one too. Many twists and turns revolving around a Russian spy in the final days of the Vietnam war. At times it almost felt like a Call of Duty mission as a movie set in Saigon. The mystery aspects felt like a blending of giallo and an American conspiracy crime thriller. It reminded me a lot of Sergio Martino's Silent Action. There is some incredible stunts by Massimo Vanni and Dell'Acqua brothers. There is some heart to this too. The relationship between Brent Huff, an American military policeman and his partner, a Vietnamese local makes for some fun and a complicated relationship. It's like a buddy cop movie with some conspiracy like Lethal Weapon mixed with Apocalypse Now.
Plot Summary Contains Spoilers
The opening of this film features the same Mattei text we have seen in other movies and an aweseome 80s rock song featuring the title. Three men with machine guns and masks are seen going to a pool are where some soldiers are on some R and R. They go into a separate room and shoot up one guy in a separate pool. Colonel Kasler (Werner Pochath) learns of this death. The soldier killed was a man named Watts. It is soon revealed that a missing General named Shooman may be responsible. Shooman and his Cobra Force have gone AWOL and are still trying to win the war. General Morris (Brett Halsey) orders an investigation headed by "Skipper," (Romano Puppo). Skipper, as he repeatedly says he hates to be called sends two men to investigate, Morgan (Brent Huff) and Vietnamese cop, Hawk (Max Laurel).
Someone goes after Colonel Kasler and manages to wound him and Hawk and Morgan pursue. They eventually corner him but he is shot before they can get anymore information. Morgan sees a woman named Annie (Candice Daly) at a bar and he follows her back to a motel. She points him in the direction of a man in another room whom he fights and kills. Files later reveal him to be a former member of Cobra Force who transferred with two other men 30 months ago. Three men have been the ones doing the assassinations. They ask the Colonel to tell them what is really going on as they know he has been holding out on them. He tells them that Lieutenant Pierce will be the next officer to be targeted. Watts, Kasler, and Pierce were in a village six months ago they thought was a base and a lot of innocent people were killed by Shooman. He is now trying to cover that up.
While tracking Pierce to a strip club, Hawk and Morgan have a more deep conversation about what Hawk really thinks of him and his country. They stop to see Hawk's family on the way. They get into an awesome car chase involving many miniatures where they stop some of the people from following them. Once there, the two remaining assassins show up and kill Pierce but Morgan and Hawk kill them. One of them gets into an awesome fight with Hawk where Hawk can't slow his strength and beats him to death. Meanwhile, in a scene straight out of a buddy cop movie Skipper shows up and chastises them for creating more chaos and destruction. General Morris now asks Morgan and Hawk to go to the front to find General Shooman. General Morris eventually tells Skipper that there is a Russian spy within the military and the whole story with Shooman was a lie because they think he is actually a Russian mole known as Vladimir. Hawk and Morgan meet Shooman at the front and here we have plenty of stock footage from Double Target with some exploding huts. Shooman takes a liking to the cops and says they will go see General Morris the next day. He explains that the story is all made up and his three men went rogue and weren't doing any killing for him.
Meanwhile assassins lead by Massimo Vanni's character show up at the base to kill General Morris. Morris gets to his car but Vanni is waiting there for him and shoots him. Hawk and Shooman travel by car but their car is ambushed and blown up by the assassins. Morgan wasn't in the car because he had been wounded while at the front. There is a touching funeral scene for Hawk where we see his family again. His wife gives Morgan a picture of the two of them. Morgan goes to see Annie and all is revealed. She is a KGB agent working with another plant, Colonel Kasler! They had both met in college in the states. Their men take Morgan out of the room and he finds a way to escape while Annie kills Kasler as her superiors say he had become to ruthless and careless. While Morgan is held at gunpoint by Annie, Hawk's wife shows up out of nowhere and kills her. Morgan had called Skipper and he shows up and kills Vanni who had his sniper set on Morgan.
There were many things I enjoyed about this. Brent Huff is really funny in this movie. There is one scene when they chase the would be assassin of Kasler he lets off a string of expletives when they fail to catch him. I love it at the end when he admits to not needing his cast and then pulls it off to reveal a gun hidden in it. I enjoy the scene where Hawk beats one of the two soldiers to death by accident. The amount of gratuitous slow motion ammo wasting is insane. This gives Zack Snyder a run for his money in that aspect. This also has some of the best whose who of Italian genre actors in it. I've mentioned a couple but I love it when they movie cuts to to Mike Monty for two seconds and I think Mattei just had Mike Monty go with him everywhere he made his movies in a military uniform because he always plays a small role as a military figure. He's like the Dale Dye of Italian Nam-sploitation movies. It's nice to see Brett Halsey in anything. While this did skip on the blood squibs more than normal for a Mattei movie it had more chases which I enjoyed. Again the Severin film restoration is great.
English Dubbing Cast:
- Frank Von Kuegelen dubs Werner Pochath as Kasler
- Nick Alexander dubs Romano Puppo as Skipper
Rating: 8/10
Trivia: The theme song was sung by Maurizio Cerantola, the lead singer of Italian rock/metal band: Shout.
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