Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972)

A couple of years spent in a tiger cage, only the memories of his idyllic childhood in small town Vermont to cling to in attempt to keep him and his buddy sane, it is perhaps inevitable that when Johnny Bristol finally comes marching home again (his buddy doesn’t make it), that he’s going to have issues. But is Johnny going crazy, suffering from PTSD? Or the victim of a government conspiracy? Or maybe he’s just gone full Jacob’s Ladder on us and never really made out of Vietnam at all? Continue reading “Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972)”

Casablanca Express (1989)

Pop quiz hotshot. You have a runaway train pointed at your platoon. What do you do? What do you do? Turns out to be a real easy question to answer for a Johnny Yank who’s on the the other train with his platoon. You take your bazooka and blow the piss out of it and the dirty no-good Kraut driving it! Give my regards to Uncle Adolph, you jackbooted, bratwurst sucking, Aryan dog turd!

Truth be told though, in Casablanca Express, our guys really didn’t kick as much Axis tail as I would have liked, but that was because super duper British secret agent Alan Cooper was doing a lot of it. And really, if it isn’t red-blooded Americans shooting, stabbing, and cussing out Nazis, there’s no one I would rather see do it than a British guy played by Connery. Jason Connery. Continue reading “Casablanca Express (1989)”

Battle of the Commandos (1969)

Those of you who’ve seen Umberto Lenzi‘s World War II movie Bridge To Hell and lamented that it was obviously the work of a master who had long since past his time obviously have not seen his Battle Of The Commandos. If you had, you would have lamented that Umberto never had any prime to get past!

Made 17 years before his feeble 1986 attempt, Battle Of The Commandos makes only the slightest of efforts to go through the motions of the “misfits on a suicide mission” flick. For his part, Lenzi makes only the slightest of efforts not to make the viewer nauseous with his abusive use of the zoom lens and whiplash-inducing panning shots. Continue reading “Battle of the Commandos (1969)”

Rescue Team (1983)

Whenever it’s time to assemble yet another team to bring back more of our boys from Vietnam (watching these POW movies can leave one with the impression there are more Americans left in Vietnam than Vietnamese), special attention must be made to signing up the right combination of talents. For instance, you need an explosives or a demolitions expert, but you’re probably wasting a team slot if you take one of each since both are likely proficient at blowing up bamboo huts. (There’s nothing wrong with lots of exploding huts of course, but you don’t want it coming at the expense of guys having their throats slit by the knife expert.) Continue reading “Rescue Team (1983)”

Cop Game (1988)

“You’re saying Shooman is a KGB agent, out at the front, countering Vietcong attacks! Sounds like science fiction!” Sure does, but you know what else it sounds like? A Bruno Mattei movie! The fact that it was Romano Puppo who spit out this bit of soft-headed, hard-boiled dialogue only confirms it! (Puppo  (Escape from the Bronx, 2019: After the Fall of New York) spends most of his scenes chewing out Brent Huff for calling him “Skipper” prompting the classic line, “this isn’t a goddamn yacht club!”) Continue reading “Cop Game (1988)”