Soldier Boyz (1995)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

When Gabrielle Prescott (Hansen), daughter of rich white man Jameson Prescott (Brandt) is kidnapped by the National Liberation Front leader Vinh Moc (Tagawa) and held for ransom, Jameson enlists Major Howard Tolliver (Dudikoff) to rescue her. Thinking he can't do it alone, he enlists a ragtag team of prisoners, and together, they are the titular "Soldier Boyz" (even though one of them is female). They all travel to Vietnam and must train together - and they don't always get along. Will the Soldier Boyz be victorious? Dudikoff puts in his usual good performance amidst the usual classic clichés, such as the exploding guard towers. Imagine a Nam Angels-type situation with a bearded Dudikoff for part of the time. Add in some of The Walking Dead and there you have it. While this movie is a low-budget actioner with a "Z" in "Boyz" instead of an "S" (S's are just not cool. Z's are much cooler, clearly), this movie is actually well-made. Tagawa is fitting as the ruthless, evil leader, something he's surely familiar with playing. You basically care about the characters - are they a youth group or prisoners - or a youth group of prisoners? Don't forget, the donation of ten million dollars to their youth group is "non-negotiable"! The movie is fast paced, with some good action sequences. Tolliver has a bad attitude because his family was gunned down (shown in flashback and never mentioned again). During the extensive training, all the Soldier Boyz try to fight Tolliver and naturally they all lose. Probably because they're not as awesome.The ending is a bit abrupt, but that's fairly common for these Direct To Video/Cable outings. There's something here for Dudikoff fans.Watch out for the video game in 1997! (Yes, there is actually a Soldier Boyz game for your PC).For more action insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

Up till a few hours ago I was of the opinion that John Cena's debut movie 'The Marine' was the worse movie ever made. It was so godforsakingly awful that ever the memory of it brings a foul taste to my mouth.....I normally like Robert Patrick but he must have owed his dealer some megabucks to need money that badly to be part of that travesty.....But, now, I have a new champion, a new movie that was so disgustingly awful that I am amazed and horrified that somebody actually ponied up the cash to:a) Buy such an atrocious script b) Hire the worst 'actors', and I use the term in its loosest possible incantation, to star in said film c) Find any professional movie makers willing to risk their professional careers to be even associated with this d) Thought it was a good idea to make this at allWhere do you start?The good points.....after thinking long and hard I decided that I wanted those 45 seconds back that a tried to find something positive to say. This waste of film deserves to have a star in its rating taken away for every single person associated with the making and distribution of it.The bad parts....well the plot was amazingly stupid....I mean...you're ripping off one of the greatest classic war movies ever made and they botched it so badly they made Attack of the Killer Tomatoes look like a work of Shakespeare. Whoever was responsible for writing this garbage should have any and all writing implements removed from them for eternity and never be able to write or dictate so much as a shopping list. The actors....you know a movie is going to suck when the best actor in it is Michael Dudikoff.....he makes Vin Diesel look like he has all the talent, range and emotion of Sir Laurence Olivier. The rest of the cast was simply atrocious.....they don't even deserve to be struggling waiters....and the action! Oh my god....maybe some of the Generation Y posters might think that the action scenes were OK.....obviously playing Battlefield 2 for 6 weeks straight does affect the brain....but I've seen more realistic and action packed scenes in silent Charlie Chaplin films. You had boneheads...I mean supposed 'gangbangers', who look about as frightening as the local icecream man, running around with pistols 'gangsta style' one shotting everything in sight.....if that wasn't bad enough, some pelican is shooting an AK one handed AND thrusting the rifle forwards like he's stabbing someone with it with everyshot and he's one shotting hordes of Vietnamese extra's! LOL!!Man, if I wasn't so bloody stoned and could have gotten off the lounge chair to find my remote I would have turned it off....but alas....it was just out of reach on the coffee table so I had to sit through it for an hour and a half. I now know exactly what CIA detainees are going through in secret prisons around the world! I've done my time in hell..watching this steaming dog turd of a movie....You want to end the war on terror...drop copies of this screaming abortion on the Inturdgents in Iraq and the Talibunnies in the 'Ghan....they'll run screaming AND you'll have the UN on your arse about using WMD's....How can crap like this get funding?? Who green lighted it and how can I contact him? I need funding for a project I am putting together, it's about a killer robot driving instructor, who travels back in time for some reason. Ron Howard's attached to direct!

Michael Dudikoff (In a not so appealing haircut)stars as a prison warden named Tolliver who lets out six prisoners to do a dirty dozen style rescue, mainly a V.I.P's daughter who has been abducted by communist Vietnamese soldiers (Ah, isn't the cold war over, guess not.) along the way Dudikoff a former soldier trains the prisoners and leads the attack on Vinh Moc (Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa) in this lively actioner which although stupid at least offers the action with a good amount of flair. Indeed when compared to Dudikoff's duds like Crash Drive and Moving Target this comes off as a vast improvement. Still the story is undeniably silly and Dolph Lundgren's "Men Of War" did this type of story much better. Although sadly the 60's song "Soldier Boy" doesn't play once during the movie.2.5/5 Matt Bronson

As much as I love a good mindless action flick, and as much as I love Michael Dudikoff in those flicks, this one just pushes too far. The acting is horrible, the characters cliched stereotypes, the plot nonsensical, and the action scenes are boring. Dudikoff must really need money bad to do tripe like this. It's movies like this and "The Shooter" that make "American Ninja" look like "The Godfather." Avoid at all costs.