Cop Game (1988)

This is one I'd been meaning to do for a long time, and seeing it recommended to me countless times on Tubi, plus considering I needed to get more Bruno Mattei on the site, I decided to finally take the plunge. In addition to us, Ty and Brett and Comeuppance (whose review was quoted on the Severin Blu-ray) and Simon at Explosive Action have covered this as well.

Cop Game is about a special forces unit in 'Nam that's gone rogue and is killing officers during the last days of the war. Military Police detectives Brent Huff and Max Laurel are called in to find out what's happening, and end up getting a lot more than they bargained for. This either goes all the way to the top, or is somewhere in the middle but is causing issues for the top, but either way, it's not good for anyone. As Huff and Laurel go in deeper they don't know who they can trust, and it doesn't help that the Vietnam War they're living in looks like late '80s Manila. Will they get out alive?

This one was a fun time, but I think it may only qualify as a fun time for people who like these kinds of movies. Like do you get a little thrill if you see Mike Monty or Jim Gaines? Then it's for you. Do you like seeing what name Bruno Mattei will be using instead of his own? Then it's for you. ("Bob Hunter" if you're wondering.) Do you like Brent Huff yelling at people and dressing like he just rolled out of bed? Then it's for you. Once you get past those things, I think the most it has to offer is Mattei not caring how much his movie that's supposed to take place in the closing days of the Vietnam War looks like it took place in 1980s Manila, which adds to the charm when you're watching it in 2026. Also, Tubi has the Severin version, which looks really nice, and while I think there's additional charm in finding an old Japanese VHS with hardcoded subs, my eyesight is getting worse as I get older, so a cleaned up version helps. Maybe not the classic for me that Strike Commando or Robowar is, but how many things are? If you're looking for some Mattei fun to help you forget your troubles for 90 minutes, this will do the trick.

We're now at six movies for Mattei, which is low, but in looking at his IMDb bio, I don't know that we'll get him that much higher, I see maybe four or five other movies of his that we could review. That's okay though, in this case it's quality over quantity, so to speak, because he's made some classics, and while this one isn't quite that for me, it's plenty fun enough. Nines are wild for the three other names people would recognize here, as this is the ninth film for Brent Huff, Mike Monty, and Jim Gaines--who is finally getting tagged on here, not sure why it took so long. Obviously Huff is the star, and while on the surface he looks like he cares as much about his role as Mattei does about anachronisms, as you watch the film you can see him bring it, which is what gets this thing over the goal line and makes it enjoyable. Monty I believe has one blink and you'll miss it scene that's been taken from another movie where he's piloting a helicopter, which isn't much, but enough to get him another tag. And then Gaines is one of a character named Ludge's henchmen (that's his character name, "Ludge's Henchman), who we're going to get into in the next paragraph. It's definitely more than Monty--and was actually newly shot footage!--but still a small part. Either way, we'll take any Gaines we can get.

Back to Ludge, he's in the shot above, holding Huff at gunpoint. He's getting his own paragraph here because his name is Donald Wilson, credited as "Don Wilson." That's right, the same name as DTVC Hall of Famer and one of the greatest to ever do it, Don "The Dragon" Wilson. You may remember a controversy that came up a few years ago where we didn't know how many movies Don "The Dragon" Wilson had been in based on his IMDb bio, and we here had reviewed two films, Siege of Firebase Gloria and Saigon Commandos, that we gave tags to "The Dragon" for, only to discover IMDb took those movies off his bio. That led to a delay in getting that Don Wilson into the 40 Club. I believe Will at Exploding Helicopter had a similar issue, because removing these movies lowered Don "The Dragon's" films with exploding helicopters count. Now we have a face to put with the other Don Wilson, who's now listed on IDMb as "Donald Wilson" to avoid confusion. He's a bit of a Philippines movie mainstay, maybe not at the level of Monty or Gaines, but he's done a good number of films with greats like Mattei and Cirio H. Santiago, so we'll definitely see him again. As far as the confusion goes, this is what happens when we wade in the murky waters of 80s DTV films, combined with relying on the murky waters of a crowdsourced site like IMDb, but we wouldn't have it any other way--actually we would, we'd like to have a reliable way to know exactly how many movies each actor has done! 

As much as I've been extolling the virtues of this film, it had its flaws, and not all of them were endearing like Mattei not caring about making the film look more early 70s or more Saigon. First, in our quest to find more Presidential Portraits, Mattei teases us with all these shots of governmental offices, yet sans Presidential Portraits! How am I supposed to take these governmental offices seriously as governmental offices without a Nixon hanging on the wall? And we need a Nixon, we've never gotten one before! One theory is these movies didn't want to platform Nixon based on how bad he was, which is an interesting one. Like in 15 years will movies have Trump portraits? I mean I guess if we go full fascist like it looks like we're going, it might be required to have his portraits in everything by then. Either way, the search for a Nixon continues, with no help from Mattei. He also didn't help our friend Will with any exploding helicopters, but the same way he teased us with multiple governmental offices, he teased us as well with not only multiple helicopters, but helicopters engaged in firefights! Come on Mattei, you didn't have a stock helicopter explosion you could mix in? (And I selfishly wanted that exploding helicopter so I could get my number on his Letterboxd list up.) The only thing we had was the Manila Chinatown, which we'd seen before in Bloodfist, but here we also had the Friendship Arch, plus the novelty that it was supposed to be in Saigon, so I guess you take your wins when you can get them.

Finally, we get a great theme song in this, one of the best parts of the movie actually, but despite that, I had "Head Games" by Foreigner replaced with "Cop Game" in my head. Growing up in the 80s, I know Foreigner is a big deal, but they haven't had a hit in a long time, and I worry that they'll be a victim, if they haven't been already, of this growing trend of kids saying a huge band or artist from the past is "underrated," just because they've never really heard of them. Again, maybe I'm creating a strawman here because I haven't seen anywhere that anyone has said Foreigner is underrated, but they're the kind of act that would be labeled as such by the kids. The worst offender was one my wife told about where a kid said George Michael was underrated. No, he was rated, and a quick check on Wikipedia would tell you that. "Regarded as a pop culture icon, he is one of the best-selling recording artists of all time... [h]e was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023. The Radio Academy named him the most played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004." That's literally in the first paragraph about him, he was never "underrated." For any of you kids reading this, if you have a notion to say "Foreigner is underrated," I also suggest looking them up on Wikipedia, where, again, in the first paragraph, it says: "Foreigner is one of the best-selling bands of all time, with worldwide sales exceeding 80 million records, including 38 million in the US."

And with that, it's probably best that we wrapped this up. If you're into physical media, Severin has a Blu-ray that's on sale as of this writing--and again quotes Ty and Brett's review on the cover. If you want to give it a test run first, the Severin transfer is on Tubi, which maybe doesn't have the charm of hard-coded Japanese subs, but it looks nice. Either way, this is a fun time and worth checking out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094909

And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

The Forgotten Warrior (1986)

A while back I did an episode of the Comeuppance Reviews podcast where we discussed the films of one Ron Marchini. I had never seen any before, so I did the seven or so he made between '85 and '95, of which this is the second and the second of four movies featuring the same lead character, Steve Parrish. In addition to us and Comeuppance, When the Vietnam War Raged... in the Philippines, and The Gentleman's Blog to Midnite Cinema have also covered this.

The Forgotten Warrior stars Ronald L. Marchini as a POW in Vietnam who, along with two fellow soldiers (Mike Monty and Quincy "Quin" Frazier), makes a daring escape. Things get wild though when Frazier kills Monty, and then tries to kill Marchini to cover up the first killing, leaving him for dead at the bottom of a river. Marchini is nursed back to health by a kind villager, whom he marries and has a kid with, only to have Frazier come back to the jungle to finish Marchini off, but killing the wife instead. Bad move Frazier, as Marchini and his yellow shirt are now unleashed, and you're going down.

 

This might be one of those ones that's more fun than good, but I'll take that any day over just plain bad. Marchini delivers the action--in a bright yellow shirt that might as well be hunter safety orange--as he's wont to do, and at a cool 76 minutes, we seldom see any real lag time. We also see a lot of the usual standards, like the white soldier training the villagers to fight, which, in a film like this we'll manage when it's so fun, but in this case also comes with a bit of commentary because the white men, even Marchini, really only bring death and destruction to the locals. Fun 'Namsploitation with a side of nuance and commentary all in a 76-minute package? Sign me up.

This is the second Marchini film we've done here, the other being Omega Cop, and as I said in that review, all of the seven I watched for the pod episode on Comeuppance were fun. For a DTV action star, that's a string of success that I don't think we've ever seen. Usually there's a dud in there somewhere. I think to that extent Marchini understood what worked: shorter runtimes, action throughout, and heroes you can root for and baddies you want to see defeated. If it's that simple, why do we see so many instances of it not working?

 

The phenomenon of 'Namsploitation in the 80s and 90s was a trend the likes of which we may never see again in film. I think it starts with filmmakers wanting to remake Rambo, but then you add in the cheap production costs of the Philippines, and you have yourself a cinematic movement. From there you could just throw in whatever you want, whether it's Marchini with a bright yellow shirt and a samurai sword, or a screaming Reb Brown, or a shirtless Richard Norton; sprinkle in some exploding huts, massive machine gunfire, and one or more of Mike Monty, Vic Diaz, Jim Gaines, or Joe Mari Avellana, and you've got yourself a hit everywhere in the world except the US--though there is a good amount of us here who appreciate this kind of thing too.

We should get back to the yellow shirt, because it will be Marchini's hallmark in the next few films. I grew up in Maine with my dad and his friends who hunted, and they had a lot of hunter safety orange hats and coats so they wouldn't shoot each other while they were trying to kill deer. That's the idea in that scenario, "I want you to see me so you don't shoot me, because you're not hunting me." Here though, Marchini's character is the one under attack, so you'd think camouflage of some sort would be the way to go, but instead, it's bright yellow. In that sense it's almost like he's saying "I don't need no stinkin' camouflage to beat you guys." It would be like Reb Brown screaming to announce that he was in the area to the baddies looking for him.

 

As we're wont to do here at the DTVC, it's time for our Mike Monty appreciation paragraph. The Monty we got here was scarce, but I'll take my Monty however I can get it. I will say though, it is a cruel thing to do to the movie watcher to give us Monty at the beginning, then snatch him away so violently. If there's one thing I can fault this film for, that would be it. If you want to sprinkle your Monty in in small parts throughout the film, I get it, but giving us the impression that this might be a Monty-fest and then kill his character off that quickly is not nice.

But that is my only complaint with a film that was otherwise a great time. As of now you can get this on YouTube. We're still banging that drum for the Marchini Blu-Ray boxed set, but until that time, YouTube will do. And if you haven't yet, check out the Comeuppance Reviews podcast, not only for the Marchini episode, but for all of them!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291913

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Black Cobra 3: The Manila Connection (1990)

In our continued efforts to get more Williamson on the site, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and do back-to-back Williamson posts. It still barely gets us to where we want to be with him, but it's a start. In addition to us, our friends Mitch at the Video Vacuum and Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have also looked at this, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought. Now, without any further ado.

Black Cobra 3 has the Hammer back as Malone, only this time instead of his chief trying to unload him onto the Philippines, now the son of former buddy from Vietnam comes back to ask for his help, after said buddy is killed. So the Hammer cashes in some accrued paid time off and heads over there. There is a mystery to be solved first, which he, the son, and another CIA agent who's well-versed in computers tries to solve; and once solved, they head into the jungle for a mini jungle slog, before Williamson and crew are able to take everyone down. Also, Mike Monty is in this as the captain, because it's a movie made in the Philippines.

 

This is another fun one. I take some points off for the jungle slog, but even with that you get the sense that the filmmakers are like "let's keep this to a minimum, no one is coming to a Williamson flick to see him chop vines with a machete and drink water from a canteen near a waterfall." The film starts with a fantastic grocery store scene, a la Cobra, only, again, in Williamson's "cover version" style as opposed to anyone ripping it off, which makes it fantastic. It's not easy to maintain that level of action throughout, but the film does manage to shoehorn in a shoot-out every 10 minutes or so, which is all we can ask for. I don't know if I like this as much as the first two, but put together, these three make for a really fun movie night marathon.

Williamson brings it again in this one. He doesn't have the material he had in the first two, especially in the form of the one-liners, but what makes Williamson so great is he can carry a film without that. We have a lot of Williamson queued up to go after this, I just need to make it happen. Like this movie, which is available on Tubi, he has a lot of stuff available to stream for free or as a part of subscription packages, which makes it real easy for anyone to get acquainted with him if you haven't already, or if you're someone who wants to introduce Williamson to your friends so they can appreciate all of his goodness. It's a very good thing.

 

The guy who plays the friend's son is Forry Smith, and while I thought he looked familiar, I couldn't figure out exactly what from, so I looked him up on IMDb. Turns out he has had a spot on almost every TV show in the 80s and 90s. We're talking Matlock, Jake and the Fatman, Growing Pains, My Two Dads, Nurses, you name it, he guested on it--he even did a Renegade episode. For anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s, going through his IMDb bio is like a walk through time, memories of nights watching network TV because cable wasn't as established back then. It was a jolt of nostalgia I wasn't expecting when I wrote this post, but a welcomed one, and the kind of fun I enjoy from doing reviews like this, the idea that you never know what you're going to uncover in the process.

When we talk about Philippine action films, the Jungle Slog often comes up as an issue. It's this forbidden fruit or siren song for the filmmaker, particularly Italian filmmakers trying to produce something on the cheap: just throw your characters in the jungle for 45 minutes, mix in the occasional shoot-out, rinse, repeat. The funny thing is, even now, 30 years later, filmmakers who set films in the Philippines can't get away from it. Look at Showdown in Manila or Death Fighter. The thing is, it so seldom works--in fact, off the top of my head I can't think of an instance where it has worked. What we have here in this film, is a situation where the jungle slog is limited, and then the presence of Williamson mitigates the slog factor itself, so the film is able to overcome it. I mean, is that the best we can do, have a film device that in the best scenario is overcome by other factors? If so, it's a film device that needs to go. I implore you filmmakers in the Philippines, stay out of the jungle!

 

In the last post I talked about tagging Mike Monty, so I finally did. It looks like this is his 7th film on the site, which seems low, but maybe that's right. In the process, I saw on my older posts that Photobucket was up to their old games with the watermarks again. One of the worst decisions I made in making this site was trusting those scam artists with hosting my photos there. We talk about bait and switches all the time, but they had the ultimate one, selling themselves as a free site, until I was almost a 1000 blog posts in with all of my images uploaded there, and then they pulled the rug out from under me. The problem is, even if I were to replace them all with images sourced on Blogger like I do now, the images linked people to the image pages I used to make, which had more content, so working out that HTML fiasco is going to be another issue--plus, having to go through almost 1000 posts anyway to replace the images themselves is such a chore. Here's to you Photobucket, you're one of the worst, and I rue the day I ever trusted you in the first place.

Since I'm getting into a negative space when I'm talking about a positive movie, I might as well wrap this up. You can stream this free on Tubi right now, which I think is the way to go. Do like I did, and watch all three in quick succession. This is the Hammer you came for, and the Hammer you need.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0204901

Black Cobra 2 (1989)

As part of the commitment I made to get more Williamson on this site, we're back now with the first of two back-to-back posts looking at the second two films in the Black Cobra series. This one has been covered by Ty and Brett a Comeuppance, also Cool Target, so you can go to their sites and see what they had to say. Now, without any further ado.

Black Cobra 2 picks up somewhere in the future after part 1, only now we're in Chicago. Sick of the Hammer's cop on the edge/break the rules to get the job done style, his chief sends him off to Manila as part of an Interpol exchange program. What better way to set a film in the more affordable Philippines, but when you have a cop like the Hammer, trouble has a way of finding him, and it does here in the way of a pickpocket who lifts his wallet being found dead when they track him down. Now the Hammer and his partner, an Interpol cop stationed in Manila played by Peter Parker/Spider-man from the old Spider-man TV series, need to get to the bottom of this and solve the crime. The baddies won't know what hit them.

This is the Hammer you came for in a nice, slick, Filipino-set Italian-produced late 80s actioner complete with a nice synthesizer/guitar score. I'll take a bad boy like this any day of the week and twice on Sunday. But this is also why I'm the moron for trying to force more modern DTV flicks into the rotation when there are gems like this out here to be watched and reviewed. Williams starts this heavy, and doesn't let up; there's a good action quotient, but when we don't have action we have the Hammer here propping up those scenes as well. I don't know that I have this as better than part 1, but it definitely keeps the train moving in a positive direction, and for a DTV sequel, that's all you can ask for.

We're now at 17 Williamson films, and we'll be at 18 once part 3 is up. For someone of his stature that low number is appalling, and I understand that as well as anyone. Our last Williamson post was when we did part 1 a little over a month ago, and I went back and checked: this is the shortest time between Williamson posts since November of 2007, when I went just shy of a month between Williamson films; but usually it's more like a year or several months between, which means we're now doing better, but we have more work to do. I mean, I put Williamson right behind Dolph as the best DTV star ever--and you could possibly make the case that he's the best ever--so the fact that I have been so negligent in getting his films up is an egregious error on my end. We'll keep working on it.

 

Williamson's co-star is Nicholas Hammond, who, as I mentioned, played Peter Parker/Spider-man on the old Spider-man TV series. When I was growing up, I feel like I remember those episodes aired on cable in the form of movies, so maybe they combined episodes to do that. My issue with it was it had none of the great Spider-man rogues gallery. Here I am reading the comic, and you've got Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Lizard, even guys like Kraven; and then guys like Venom and Carnage who came later that wouldn't have been around for that show, but were still awesome; yet he never fought any of them. Imagine a Spider-man TV series now where they had the whole crew. That would be amazing. If they could make a successful TV series out of the Green Arrow, Spider-man would be a cinch. Stop with these blockbuster movies that keep covering the same ground and just cycle in new baddies, and do something big. If they streamed a series like that on Disney+ I'd totally break down and get a subscription, and I hate Disney and what they're doing to the film industry. It doesn't take much for me to go back on my principles.

That felt like the final paragraph rant there, so with a couple more to go it's good to reel myself in--though could you imagine Williamson as J. Jonah Jameson in that TV series I just described? Anyway, when we looked at the first Black Cobra, we talked about how it was a take on Stallone's Cobra. This one felt like it had more Lethal Weapon notes in it, but with Williamson being the Mel Gibson character in his own style--the same way he was the Stallone character in his own style in the first one. That's what I think makes Williamson so great, he can take a movie that is borrowing/ripping off elements from established big hits, and instead of making it feel crass like that, he makes it like he's doing a cover version. And his covers are better than the originals to me, which is what I love. 

 

Finally, what Philippine production would be complete without Mike Monty. I've never tagged him before, but maybe I need to start, because he pops up in so many of these movies, and we do so many of them on the site. When I see Monty in a Philippine production from the late 80s/early 90s, it's like hearing the opening chords to an old song I love, or tasting the first bites of my favorite comfort food dish, there's like an "ahhh" feeling, like life is good and as it should be. Here's to you Mike Monty, you were one of the great ones.

And with that, let's wrap this one up. You can get this on Prime right now, and it's worth it. This is the Williamson you came for. It's good, and it doesn't stop being good until the credits roll. Skip that Bruce Willis mid-2010s Michigan-shot slog you have in your queue, and watch this instead. Your soul will thank you.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238080

Silk (1986)

In looking to get more Cirio H. Santiago on the site, I came across this when Ty from Comeuppance Reviews posted his VHS copy on his Instagram account, tyactionrocks. If you're not following that account on Instagram, you need to, it's fantastic! Anyway, without any further ado, let's see how this one did. This was also reviewed by Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Cool Target Action Reviews, and Mitch at The Video Vacuum, so you can see what they thought as well.

Silk has Cec Verrell as our eponymous hero, working as a detective on the Honolulu police department. She's as bad as they come, and criminals don't stand a chance. When an affluent English gentleman decides to set up his criminal empire shop in her backyard, there's going to be hell to pay.

When an action heroine has her own Pat Benatar-ish theme song, you know you're in for something great, and this only delivers from there. Cec Verrell is fantastic in the lead, the action is consistent, and when the action isn't there, we have other fun moments. This is the kind of movie the DTVC was made for, and the fact that we're almost 1000 posts and 13 years in and I'm just getting to it now is a travesty. Better late than never I guess, and we're here now making it happen. Cirio H. Santiago reaffirms his place in the DTVC Hall of Fame yet again.

This is back-to-back posts with Cec Verrell in them, with her having a part in Hollywood Vice Squad as well, and her third film overall, the other being Hell Comes to Frogtown. In looking at her imdb bio, there isn't much more that we could do of hers, which is too bad, because you feel like from a movie like this she could've had a bigger DTV action career, maybe not quite at Cynthia Rothrock's, but something in the 30 movie range--she wasn't even in Silk 2, which I can't believe after how great she was here. Alas, while the quantity of films was smaller, we're left with the quality, and there is a lot of quality in a film like this for us to celebrate.

I joke often that the biggest trope in movies is film review bloggers using the word trope, but I couldn't think of a better way to describe the damsel in distress trope than as a trope. Anyway, for whatever reason, Cec Verrell couldn't escape it, and despite being the eponymous heroine upon which the film is based, still finds herself captured by the baddies, tied up, and used for bait in the final scene. And the thing is, it felt grafted on, like the helicopter that's only there to be blown up and otherwise serves no other purpose. I'm all for paint-by-numbers, but I think if you're going to make a movie with a woman in the lead who's as badass as Verrell is here, why not skip that part, or have a different female character that you can use for that instead. When we look at some of the other movies we've done this month, Altitude with Denise Richards, Skyscraper with Anna Nicole Smith, Honor and Glory with Cynthia Rothrock and Donna Jason, and Hollywood Vice Squad with Verrell and Carrie Fisher, none of them needed to use the damsel in distress device--the closest I think was Anna Nicole Smith when the baddie in leather pants tries to rape her, and she stabs him with a letter opener and sends him out the window to his death--and all of those movies worked, just like Silk worked. We're okay skipping the damsel in distress, you can trust us to survive if it doesn't happen.

Down below is our good friend Vic Diaz. He, along with our other good friends Joe Mari Avellana and Mike Monty (credited first as Mike Monte, then later as Mike Monty) all make appearances in this. Seeing them in a Philippine action film, especially a Cirio H. Santiago flick, is like watching an old Johnny Carson rerun in bed, or smelling French fries cooking in a fast food joint as I walk by. There's a comfort in knowing they're there, like I know I'm right where I'm supposed to be watching exactly what I'm supposed to be watching at that moment. When we talk about Martin Scorsese's comments about how Marvel movies aren't cinema, maybe what he meant was, they had neither Diaz, Monty, or Avellana in them, and as such couldn't be cinema. I hope that's what he meant...

Cirio H. Santiago is the film's one Hall of Famer, so it's rare to have the Hall of Famer not discussed until this paragraph, but here we are. This is only Santiago's 9th film reviewed on the site, which I believe is the lowest of any Hall of Famer. This is, and has been, a major oversight on my part that I've been meaning to amend. I've mentioned this in other posts, but when I came back from hiatus, I focused too much on newer movies, especially in trying to catch up on all the new Dolph, Seagal, and Van Damme out there, plus the Gary Daniels, Scott Adkins, and Michael Jai White; the thing is though, how often does one of the newer movies hold a candle to something like this? Cirio H. Santiago is in the Hall of Fame for a reason, and one of his films is less of a roll of the dice than a lot of the newer stuff that's out there.

Right now you can stream this on Tubi, or if you have the Shout Factory subscription on Prime you can stream it there too. I think streaming is your best bet, and then you can make the decision after on whether or not you want to ante up for the blu-ray DVD version. However you slice it, this is what you came for, and what we at the DTVC are all about.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091957

Last Flight to Hell aka L'ultimo volo all'inferno (1990)

A friend of mine hooked me up with a copy of this from his VHS.  It looked fantastic, especially with Reb Brown and Chuck Connors, plus it's and AIP flick.  Let's see how it turned out.  Also, our friend Ty at Comeuppance Reviews has hit this one.  It definitely looks like a Ty kind of flick.

Last Flight to Hell has Reb Brown as a DEA agent in the Philippines(?) working to take down drug dealer Mike Monty.  His boss, Chuck Connors wants him brought in alive, but when he's close to catching him, some Chinese drug lord scoops him up and holds him for ransom.  So now poor Reb Brown has to go into the jungle after him, where he meets up with Monty's daughter, who has been sent in to pay the ransom.  Will they get Monty and get out alive?



Maybe my one complaint is that it's light on the Reb Brown screaming, but otherwise this delivers.  Brown is awesome, Chuck Connors is awesome, Mike Monty is awesome-- the whole thing is awesome.  Plenty of action-- they get the chopper explosion out of the way quickly--, plenty of silly low-budget moments, and tons of hallmarks you expect from Italian exploitation flicks shot in the Philippines.  We had exploding huts, we had jungle chases, and myriad local stuntmen shimmying through hails of gunfire.  The best moment comes near the end, when Brown shoots the baddie between the eyes as the guy is driving a truck to him.  The truck veers out of control, into an abandoned shack, causing it to explode, to which Brown says "just like the fourth of July" in the calmest, soberest voice possible.  Not quite as iconic as Strike Commando or Robowar, but still plenty of fun.

This is some great Reb Brown.  I think he's supposed to be more of a maverick type, with his unkempt hair and five o'clock shadow.  It doesn't come off, Brown is too good a guy, but that doesn't make you want to root for him any less.  As I said above, he doesn't really have any great screaming moments, but he has a few near ones that were nice.  The thing is, this script was cobbled together, so just watching his earnest attempt to make the most of it was plenty for me, and I'm sure you'd enjoy it too.  Depending on how big you wanted your Reb Brown film fest to be, this is a potential inclusion.



The Rifleman Chuck Connors is great in this as well.  Growing up my father used to watch The Rifleman, and I watched it with him, so that made it really cool to see him in this and get a film of his on the DTVC.  Also, I'm not entirely sure, but I think he now joins Rick Fox, who was in Resurrection, as the only two former Boston Celtics to have films on here.  Oh wait, that's right, I did Steel with Shaquille O'Neal, and he finished his career with the Celtics too.  Anyway, Connors brings that imposing screen presence to this film, and it works so well with him opposite Brown.  It must've been an honor for Brown to work with him too, and I think, while we want to mock these movies and act like being in them must be the worst things ever, I imagine for someone like Brown, to have moments like that, he must feel very lucky, and I think that's pretty cool.

The great Italian/Philippine exploitation mainstay Mike Monty is in this as the drug dealer Brown is sent to bring in.  He's not in it much after he's kidnapped early on, though he makes up for it near the end.  Still, it was disappointing, because he's so great, and I would've loved to have seen him in it more as a menacing, evil kind of figure.  He has a rather prodigious filmography, but we've only done two others of his to this point: Strike Commando, and then the Miles O'Keeffe flick Phantom Raiders.  Here's to you Mike Monty, you were one of the good ones.



Finally, I wanted to discuss the way this film handled the exploding hut element.  Instead of it being innocent villagers suffering as collateral damage, it's Brown blowing up the huts on the baddie's compound.  I've seen other films go this route before, and I have to say I like it much better.  Why blow up an innocent person's home-- or give the illusion that you are in a film-- when you don't have to?  It's much less problematic this way.

This is a really fun film, but as far as I know used VHS is the only way to go.  Amazon does have it, but it's a little pricey, so maybe for collectors in that case, but if you see it in a bargain bin I wouldn't hesitate to jump on it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102270/

Double Target (1987)

When I said we were going to get more Miles O'Keeffe on this blog, I wasn't kidding (I also knew because I got this one at the same time I got Phantom Raiders, so that helped). The Miles O'Keeffe Philippine 'Namploitation flick isn't something we've hit that much to this point, so it's been good to check a couple out. We're working toward finally being able to say our blog has Miles O'Keeffe, but at this point, I'd say we're still at Feet O'Keeffe, maybe Yards O'Keeffe.

Double Target has Miles as Robert Ross (no, not Bob Ross the TV painter), a Vietnam vet who goes back to the country to get the son he sired with a woman there. He's met by Bo Svenson and his Soviet terrorist cell working out of Vietnam, and they try to kill him. That's when old war buddy Mike Monty calls him in to help out in weasel senator Donald Pleasence's mission to attack the terrorist cell. If Miles succeeds, he gets his son. If he doesn't, Pleasence leaves him to rot in Vietnam. Miles can't let that happen, he needs to get his son, and return to base to make Donald eat his inhaler and shove his briefcase up his ass.



This is pretty fantastic. Take everything you think of with a Bruno Mattei directed 'Namploitation flick starring Reb Brown, only replace Reb Brown with Miles O'Keeffe, and that's how awesome this is. Huts exploding everywhere. Plot devices that make no sense but we love them anyway. Great one-liners from Miles, and great lines that aren't one-liners but sound great with his Tennessee accent. This is a little long at 102 minutes, but I think the fun factor allows it to transcend that. Easily one of my favorite Miles flicks.

Oh Miles, let me count the ways. To quote Ben Stiller impersonating Bruce Springsteen while interviewing Diddy (then Puff Daddy) for MTV, "why are you so awesome?" He has this one scene early on where one of Svenson's cronies punches him in the face, and he's like "you son of a bitch" and starts doing all kinds of karate on the guy. We cut to some other people talking, then back to him running the halls of this building, taking out dudes coming out of every doorway. And it just gets better, with him then running through an open air market in a foot chase. With each film we review on here, I feel like a bigger heel for not having Miles O'Keeffe on here more earlier. It'll be fun to make up for lost time though.



Do you like you some exploding huts? Well this one has them. In one scene, Miles and his buddy notice that the local village has been taken hostage by Svenson and his men. So what is Miles's brilliant plan to save them? Blow up every hut, that's what. In the interests of verisimilitude, aren't people technically supposed to be living in those huts, i.e. the villagers? I mean, is it really a rescue if Miles levels their village with a bazooka? I guess it doesn't really matter, does it? Good guys, bad guys, if they're blowing up huts, we're good with it. The extras are just Filipinos that'll collect their fee and go back to their shantytown outside of Manilla, they don't really live in the huts.

Vincent Dawn directs this. I was thinking maybe I should go with an Italian name for the times I review Mattei flicks where he uses an alias. My name in Italian would be Matteo Pero. Maybe I should just go Mattei Pero. I love that he calls himself Vincent Dawn though. If I didn't think my comment box would be filled with "you know Vincent Dawn is really Bruno Mattei, right?", I'd refer to him exclusively as Vincent Dawn in all the films he goes by that alias. I think if I ever have a son, I'll name him Vincent Dawn, or maybe a daughter named Dawn Vincent.



I know in the Phantom Raiders post we gave some shine to Italian B movie mainstay Mike Monty, but I thought we might as well do it again here. Maybe I'm romanticizing what it must've been like to have a career in Italian B movies, travelling to exotic locations (the Philippines is exotic, right? Italy's nice at least), donning a beret and mean-mugging it for the camera, only to have to go in after to redub your scenes in English. Maybe it really sucked. Maybe their accommodations in the Philippines sucked, no A/C, gross spiders, cheap hookers, warm beer, constant attacks of Montezuma's Revenge. Well, if it did suck, all I can say is, thank you for your sacrifices, everyone involved in making Philippine exploitation flicks, because they've given me tons of enjoyment.

And on that great note, let's wrap this up. Japanese VHS might be the best way to go. That's what I was watching, a rip off a Japanese VHS, complete with hard subs. This would definitely be a collector's piece, and a worthy addition on your shelf. This is what you came for, a Vincent Dawn directed Miles O'Keeffe hut explosionfest with some great co-stars too.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092921/

Phantom Raiders (1988)

It's been almost a year since our last Miles O'Keeffe post, which is simply unacceptable. In fact, his meager 12 tags is among the lowest for DTVC inaugural Hall of Famers-- in fact, only Klaus Kinski is lower, and he's in more for embodying the spirit of what it means to be a great DTV actor than he is for his DTV filmography. This is an abomination. If someone were to ask me how much Keeffe is on my site, I'd only be able to tell them "feet O'Keeffe."

Phantom Raiders has Miles as Python Lang (yep, Python is his first name), a highly trained special forces dude called in by the government to take out a rogue Green Beret colonel that's training Commies in Vietnam. Python gets some old special forces vets he served with in 'Nam, gives them some ninja style training, and takes them and the colonel's son-- another special forces dude that wants to take his dad down-- back into 'Nam to stop this dude from training the Commies. Can he do it?



This is a lot of fun. Is it spectacular or something you should go out of your way for-- especially if you're more a casual fan and not a collector? Probably not, but you could do a lot worse. It's a lot of excitement by repetition, a lot of guys running into space, spraying the area in gunfire, and Filipino stuntmen shimmying or looking like they slipped on some wet grass, followed by a grenade tossed into the middle of a group of them, and they all fall over. Towards the end, things get more into classic 'Namploitation fare, with huts exploding all over the place. I think this one is more about the fun of Miles O'Keeffe, the fun of the low production values, and the mindless fun of a good shoot-'em-up. I like it for a good bad movie night with like minded friends.

Where have ye been Miles O'Keeffe? Or perhaps, Miles could be asking me that same question, considering he's always out there, I just need to bring in more of his films. Other than the fact that we lose him for a period near the end when his buddies are off storming the castle, one could fairly accurately describe this movie as having "Miles O'Keeffe". I should point out, I've seen in a few places where this description of how much Keeffe is in a movie is ascribed to someone other than MST3K. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, the joke "how much Keeffe is in this movie?" "Miles O'Keeffe" originated in the Cave Dwellers episode of MST3K-- the movie moment when I was first introduced to the awesomeness that is Miles O'Keeffe. And it is my New Year's Resolution here at the DTVC to make sure we don't take him for granted anymore.



The trailer for this gives the impression that Miles is a ninja, which isn't entirely accurate. He uses Ninjitsu as an element of his training, and he and the guys toss throwing stars-- some of which have explosives, which are great for blowing up huts. Then we see him running around with the GI Joe ninja mask on, which makes him seem more ninja-ish, but it's more like he's got the mask mixed in with a military uniform. It's okay, even without the full-blown ninja aspect, this is still ninja enough to be fun.

The late Mike Monty plays the colonel, and while you'll probably recognize him, according to imdb, a lot of the films he was in he wasn't credited for-- including one we would've seen him in, Strike Commando. What a good deal that seems like though, huh? Move over to Italy in the late 60s, make some soft-core porn and exploitation flicks for like 15 years, then make some more in the Philippines in the 80s, before moving back to Italy to retire. I think too often we focus on the quality of the movie someone is making, and act as if that's gotta be the worst thing in the world-- and maybe for some actors it is, but you gotta think for a Mike Monty Phantom Raiders and Strike Commando were the ticket to the good life. Here's to you Mike Monty, a real doer.



One last point about Miles. A few films of his ago, I realized that I'd been misspelling his name, calling him "Miles O'Keefe", which is the way he's credited in some of his films (including this one). Anyway, I went to at least fix it in the tags, but forgot to take out the old erroneous tag. It shows what can happen if I don't post enough Miles O'Keeffe flicks, I end up neglecting his tag, and then we end up with two, and people wanting to see what Miles I've done, end up confused. Again, I'm sorry, not just for the lack of Miles, but the whole tag debacle too.

This is available used and pretty cheap on DVD here in the States and abroad under a few distributors-- the most recent I believe Cine Excel, before going out of print again. I'm not sure you need it unless you're a collector, but if you see it in your travels and it's not more than a few bucks (you can get it for $3 including shipping from Amazon here in the States), I'd definitely pull the trigger. You could do a lot worse than this one.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844331/

Strike Commando (1987)

This was another one of the films our buddy from down under, Sutekh, sent us in a package that also contained Deadly Prey and Robowar. Like Robowar, Strike Commando is a Japanese VHS rip, which comes complete with Japanese subtitles. If you want you can check out his review of both this and the sequel, at his site, Explosive Action.

Strike Commando stars DTVC favorite Reb Brown as Sgt. Michael Ransom, the best guy we got, doing special forces work in Vietnam. He ends up stranded, thought to be dead, after a mission goes wrong-- because evil colonel Christopher Connelly screwed it up. Now Reb is back at the US base, and he has proof that the Russians are involved. Connelly wants more proof, so he sends Brown back in, only for him to get captured and tortured by the evil Russian officer Jakoda. Problem is, all they've done is awoken a sleeping bear, because Reb Brown is pissed, he's armed, and he's beefy, and everyone's gonna pay!



This is fantastic in every way imaginable. Is this good Reb Brown? No, it's great Reb Brown. Is this great Bruno Mattei? No, it's exceptional Bruno Mattei. Is this a good Vietnam War in the Philippines movie? No, it's pretty much as good as it gets. This is just the perfect get your buddies together and laugh at the screen kind of film. I know my buddy and I watched it while he was house sitting last year, and we loved it. It might be a difficult one to find, but if you can get it, by all means.

What do you think of when you hear the name Reb Brown? Beefiness combined with screaming, right? And this has all of that. I uploaded the end fight scene with the major baddie (you can check it out on the image page), but I easily could've uploaded seven or eight more. There's the torture montage, which shouldn't have been funny, but was. Or the tearful goodbye where Reb Brown tells a kid all these lies about Disneyland as the kid dies in his arms. Come to think of it, any scene with Reb Brown in it in Strike Commando is great. (I don't want to give away the context of that first image above, but it's equally fantastic.)



This is only the second Bruno Mattei film we've looked at, the first being Robowar-- and both with him credited under the pseudonym "Vincent Dawn". That number will only go up as we swim in more of his circles, but his movies aren't exactly the easiest things to find either. He passed away in 2007, and of his last five or six films, I'm not sure that any were released in the United States. At the very least, we still have Strike Commando II to cover, so we're not done with him yet.

Christopher Connelly plays the bad colonel. If you've watched any TV shows from the 1970s, you'd recognize him. He passed away shortly after this was made, though there were two other films released after his death, Night of the Sharks, co-starring Treat Williams and Antonio Fargas; and Django II, starring Franco Nero and Donald Pleasence-- both films were Italian productions, though neither were directed by Mattei.



The best judge of an action film is how many end fights they have-- and how great they are. This has two-and-a-half, each one better than the first. I uploaded the first one, with big baddie Jakoda. Then he has one against the American that double-crossed him. Then he has a half of one after that against Jakoda, just to finish things off. This is a very important lesson for people who drag their films on. First, if you cut down on the boring early on, you can get away with multiple endings; but second, and most importantly, each one needs to be better than the first. If you're thinking of drawing your film out more, go to Strike Commando for a clinic on how to do it properly.

This can either be purchased on VHS, or is available on a big Grindhouse collection, which the reviews of on Amazon describe it as varying in quality. Really, anyway you do it, this is very worth it. It's some of the best Reb Brown you can ask for.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094059/